Paramount Skydance will be cutting 1,600 more jobs just after 600 employees quit in order to avoid returning to work in the office.
Following its layoff of 1,000 employees in October, the company revealed this week it will be cutting 1,600 more jobs as it aims to cut costs amid the recent merger between Paramount and Skydance, per the New York Post:
The company said it will also cut about 1,600 jobs as part of a strategic review, in addition to the 1,000 employees it laid off in late October.
For the fourth quarter, Paramount Skydance expects revenue between $8.1 billion and $8.3 billion, above estimates of $8 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
It reported revenue of $6.7 billion for the third quarter, compared with estimates of $6.97 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
The company does expect its streaming platform, Paramount+, to be profitable this year with a growing subscriber base in 2026. eMarketer senior director Jeremy Goldman said CEO David Ellison’s goal is to prove the company’s efficiency.
“This isn’t about nostalgia for Hollywood’s past; it’s about proving a legacy studio can move with tech-company speed. Ellison is pairing consolidation with investment, betting that a smaller, sharper Paramount can grow faster than its sprawling predecessor,” said Jeremy Goldman.
Upon the merger this past September, David Ellison told employees that they will be required to return to working in person five days a week or else accept a buyout.
“As I said during our town hall, some of the most formative moments of my life happened in rooms where I was a fly on the wall, listening and learning. I’ve never seen that happen on Zoom,” Ellison said in a company-wide email.
According to Fortune, roughly 600 employees took the buyout in both its Los Angeles and New York offices, costing $185 million in severance packages.
“While some employees feel they would rather buck the trend of job hugging in favor of workplace flexibility, employers have been using the RTO push as a strategy for back-door layoffs, where firms expect—and hope—workers will quit as a result of in-person work mandates,” noted Fortune.
“A 2024 BambooHR survey of more than 1,500 U.S. managers found about 25% of C-suite executives hoped for voluntary employee turnover as a result of implementing an RTO policy. About 20% of human resource professionals said their RTO mandates were intentionally meant to reduce headcount,” it added.
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