Major Layoffs Hit the Media and Entertainment Industries

Thousands of people working in media and entertainment have been laid off in the past few weeks, and there is little sign the economic conditions driving them will let up soon.

As the economy braces for a recession, advertisers have pulled back on the spending media companies rely on for revenue. With their primary revenue stream drying up, companies are cutting costs. Affected employers include streaming services, social media companies and journalism sites.

Here are some of the companies that have announced layoffs:

• Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, laid off 11,000 people, or 13 percent of its workforce.
• Amazon is laying off around 10,000 employees, including some from the devices and services team, which is less than 1 percent of its global workforce.
• Twitter cut half its staff and laid off about 3,700 people under new ownership of Elon Musk.
• Gannett, which owns local newspapers like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, El Paso Times and Detroit Free Press, as well as USA Today, announced it will lay off 200 people, or 6 percent of its workforce, in early December.
• Roku, a streaming device company, will cut 200 jobs, or 7 percent of its workforce.
• Paramount Global is laying off employees from its ad sales group. Less than 100 employees are expected to be impacted.
• Warner Bros. Discovery has laid off 70 people—less than 1 percent of its total headcount—mostly from Turner Sports and Bleacher Report.
• Protocol, a tech news site, is shutting down and laying off its 64 employees.
• Morning Brew, a daily newsletter platform, is laying off 14 percent of its staff. According to its headcount from LinkedIn, nearly 50 people will be affected.
• ABC announced an undisclosed number of layoffs to come.
• CNN said layoffs are expected, but it didn’t say how many.
• Disney announced cost cuts that would likely include layoffs, though it didn’t clarify further.