As the contraction of the entertainment industry continues, on Tuesday Paramount jumped into its second round of layoffs with the goal of reducing its staff by 15 percent across the board.
“In order to set Paramount up for continued success, we are taking these actions, and after today, 90% of these reductions will be complete,” Paramount co-CEOS George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins said in a memo sent to employees as reported by The Wrap.
The entertainment conglomerate hopes to eliminate 15 percent of its employees and cut $ 500 million in expenses as it prepares to merge with Skydance Media.
So far, cuts are being made in marketing, communications, finance, legal, technology, and other departments.
The second round of layoffs was first reported in August by Paramount Global co-CEO Chris McCarthy who announced the changes during a Q2 earnings call. Butt no timeline was given at the time.
Hollywood has suffered a series of setbacks over the last few years. Also in August, Warner Bros. Discovery saw its stock take an $11.2 billion dive after the “company reported disappointing second quarter earnings on Wednesday that missed expectations on both the top and bottom lines,” per Yahoo Finance.
But Hollywood has not really recovered from the Pandemic years when theaters were closed by COVID lockdowns, which was then quickly followed by the twin strikes of the actors and writers unions.
Paramount is hardly alone in feeling the financial pain. Disney also cut staff in August with layoffs falling on ABC News, as well as its entertainment TV division, with National Geographic and Freeform particularly hard hit.
This year’s continuing rounds of layoffs at Disney comes on the heels of the 7,000 jobs the House of Mouse cut last year.
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