Disney cuts more jobs as restructuring continues

Walt Disney Co has begun a second round of layoffs as part of an earlier announced restructuring expected to result in 7,000 job losses.

The media giant has been under pressure as its traditional television and film business shrinks, while its streaming unit continues to post big losses.

Chief executive Bob Iger announced the $5.5bn cost-cutting drive in February.

This week's cuts are expected to bringing the total number of reductions so far to 4,000.

The losses will fall across the company, including at sports channel ESPN and film studios. The firm has said frontline workers at the park are not expected to be affected.

The redundancies are indicative of a larger retrenching across the entertainment industry, as executives refocus on profits, after years in which many traditional media firms spent heavily to launch streaming platforms and win subscribers.

Mr Iger, Disney's longtime boss who returned to the company in November after the ousting of Bob Chapek, has said the firm needed to streamline its business.

Among other measures, the firm is planning to spend $3bn less on content.

The 7,000 in redundancies announced in February amount to about 3% of the 220,000-person workforce the company employed as of 1 October.

The firm commenced its job cuts with a first round of notifications to staff at the end of last month.

Another wave of cuts are expected this summer.

The company, which employs more than 50,000 people outside the US, did not respond to an inquiry about how many of the job cuts would involve international staff.