The people who reproduced the new Spider-Man movie suit or conjured Asgard to the big screens recently may be out of a job. On April 14, 2026, Disney's new CEO Josh D'Amaro, who took charge only in March, reportedly sent an internal memo announcing the elimination of up to 1,000 roles across the company to "streamline operations" and build a "more agile and technologically-enabled workforce." Marvel Studios, arguably the world's most powerful film franchise, was hit hardest. According to reports from Deadline and Forbes, approximately 8 per cent of Marvel's total workforce was let go across both Marvel Studios in Burbank and Marvel Entertainment in New York, spanning film, television, comics, legal and finance.
Ground reports also said that Disney laid off nearly the entire Visual Development team at Marvel Studios. These are the concept artists, character designers and illustrators who build the visual identity of every film from scratch, before shooting and VFX.
As per Forbes and Screen Rant, only a skeleton crew of full-time employees will remain to coordinate the hiring of outside contractors on a project-by-project basis going forward. Marvel's sources confirmed the restructuring was driven by the studio's previously announced reduction in its production slate, not by AI replacement, though the shift toward contract-based creative work raises questions that will not go away easily.
The global trend of such layoffs has also hit India recently. The tech industry globally has already slashed over 71,000 jobs in 2026, with Oracle alone cutting 30,000 employees worldwide, approximately 12,000 of them in India, primarily in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, delivered via a blunt 6 AM email, reports said.
India's own IT giants TCS reported a net annual reduction of 23,460 employees in FY2026, incurring ₹1,388 crore in restructuring costs, while Bengaluru-based Livspace laid off 1,000 employees, nearly 12 per cent of its workforce, as it looks to pivot to an "AI-native" model. India's top four IT majors, TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech, have collectively shed approximately 42,000 employees over the past two years, as per reports.
