A story on WESH.com reveals it’s not all bad news at Walt Disney World as far as cast member layoffs are concerned. In fact, Disney’s Casting Center continues to hire new employees.
Union workers, including characters, custodians and many people on the front lines have been told their jobs are safe, but University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith said he wouldn’t be surprised to learn of more layoffs in the year ahead.
“Recession begins and then at a later date, that’s when the layoffs start so we’re just getting into that cycle when we’ll see more layoffs,” Snaith said.
A union leader said the Disney Casting Center continues to hire and there’s been no word of a hiring freeze. That leads him to believe the layoffs are truly a consolidation and he’s hopeful the rank and file workers will keep their jobs.
With gas prices forecast to stay low for the summer, it might mean a lot of drive-in traffic for Walt Disney World. It’s not all good news, however, many will lose their jobs in this consolidation and some of the uniqueness that makes Disney’s theme parks so magical is likely to be impacted by the management consolidation.
My family and I visited WDW in June of 2007 and June of 2008. On the 2008 visit we were lucky enough to share a monorail cabin with a cast member who was going off duty. He said that WDW demands a huge number of people to operate and, at that time, there was a shortfall of personnel and that WDW couldn’t hire enough people to fill al of the slots. He said by way of example that some of the air conditioning units on the very monorail we were riding in were broken and weren’t fixed because there weren’t enough A/C techs to keep up. It would seem to me that the average joe cast members won’t have much of a problem. After all, WDW still has to operate. WDW is still very profitable, just not as profitable as last year. If attendance dropped 20% the parks would still be crowded.
Some Disney World employees told their jobs are safe. Now, THAT’S a refreshing update from an employer. Hope it sticks. http://bit.ly/15bEYF
It’s not all bad news at Walt Disney World as far as cast member layoffs are concerned. http://tinyurl.com/cxe9j6
Yes, we’re all anxious to hear how the layoffs (aka reorganization) will affect the front-line cast members and the guest experience. This seems to be positive news, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
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