Disney layoffs on the film side include story, sales and marketing departments; searchlight and more

EXCLUSIVE: As Disney lays off 4K employees across the conglomerate to achieve $5.5 billion in savings, Deadline has learned that the feature layoffs have largely consisted of mid-level employees and coordinators.

Affected departments include Searchlight, as well as general Disney marketing, PR, sales, legal, 20th and Disney story departments.

Many productive leaders are among those who wipe their brows and dodge the axe.

While those affected included everyone from two-decade-old vets to new hires, an insider told Deadline it wasn’t the carnage of the Disney acquisition of 20th Century Fox.

Eight employees were cut from the story department, some of whom came from 20th Century Fox. The employees were informed today in discussions with HR and department heads.

Deadline hears the layoffs have been given 60 days’ notice, but will have to work on a week’s severance pay for the duration of their employment. In previous layoffs, those fired were not expected to work and were paid anyway when they were fired.

Since many of those affected are union members, their severance pay depends on the collective agreement and length of service. Disney wants to give the layoffs as much flexibility as possible during the 60-day period to look for another job.

On the Soeklig side, the relevant departments were law, production, PR and marketing. When Disney merged with 20th, Searchlight was largely untouched. They grew post-merger when former CEO Bob Chapek moved Disney to streaming, and now the 20th classic art house label is back with some pre-merger employees among the 100+ staff.

Other tracks are coming. To date, Pixar has remained untouched in Emeryville, CA.

Disney did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment.