1,000 Due Pink Slips at Disney

In the final phase of its plan to cut 4,000 jobs companywide, Walt Disney Co. is expected to deliver pink slips to about 1,000 workers from Burbank to Orlando, Fla., starting today and continuing over the next few weeks.

The layoffs come two months after Disney announced its single biggest job cut ever, blaming a soft economy that has hurt theme park attendance and advertising spending at its ABC television network.

Disney offered voluntary severance packages to most of its salaried employees and said the remaining cuts would come from dismissals.

About 3,000 employees accepted the company’s voluntary separation program, leaving about 1,000 who will lose their jobs between now and the end of July, company spokesman John Dreyer said.

He would not say where the cuts will occur, but acknowledged that they are companywide.

“It’s not something that’s easy to do,” Dreyer said. “It’s a tough decision, but it’s one that has to be made.”

Among the areas expected to be hit hardest by the layoffs are Disney’s theme parks in Anaheim and Orlando and its feature animation department, where Disney is cutting several dozen jobs and slashing salaries by 30% to 50% in response to the unit’s declining profits.

In an attempt to wring more efficiencies out of ABC, Disney also is expected to furlough two dozen employees in the network’s news operation.

In addition, one Disney source said that executives have been told that there will be about 25 layoffs at the studio, which includes movie, music, home entertainment and TV animation divisions.

The buyouts were offered to most salaried employees, from secretaries to senior vice presidents.

Disney was disappointed that more upper-level managers didn’t accept the offer, two former executives said.

“They were clearly anticipating more vice presidents and directors would take the packages than did,” said a Disney executive who accepted the buyout but asked not to be identified.

Uncertainty over who would be targeted has created considerable anxiety throughout the company.

“Companywide the morale is very shaky,” the executive said. “People are nervous. They don’t know what’s next.”

But Dreyer said that Disney was very pleased at the response to its severance offers and that employees understand the company’s action.

The 4,000 positions represent nearly 3% of the company’s 120,000 workers. The cuts are expected to save the company up to $400 million annually, according to Disney.

The roughly 1,650 positions eliminated at Walt Disney World and Disneyland and 125 jobs at ABC News account for most of the staff reduction.

Disney’s European operations survived relatively unscathed because of restrictive labor laws in Europe.

Since January, Disney also has laid off 535 workers from its Internet group.

The Disney job reductions are part of an industrywide trend and follow earlier cuts at General Electric’s NBC television network and at AOL Time Warner.

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Times staff writer Claudia Eller contributed to this report.