NBCUniversal has announced that they are unfortunately cutting 200 jobs at their DreamWorks Animation campus this Thursday.
The layoffs were announced three weeks after NBCUniversal’s parent company Comcast filed a 3.8-billion-dollar acquisition for the animation company. Jeff Shell, the Chief of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, commented that the cuts are going to be focused on the overhead corporate groups. He also explained with the staff memo that the layoffs will also include employees who are in the distribution and consumer product division. Shell stated that these departments need to integrate with NBCUniversal’s operations and businesses.
Shell also continued to comment for those impacted by the layoffs, they will be notified this week and will keep their job for at least the next several months to help the animation company with the transition. The chairman also stated that these decisions are difficult, but necessary moves DreamWorks needs to make to integrate with NBCUniveral’s organization and will provide as much generosity as they can to the employees who are affected by the merger.
Jeff Shell also stated that both DreamWorks animation and NBCUniverals will try to find more job opportunities for their laid off employees and will also provide them placement counseling if they need it.
DreamWorks animation seems to be undergoing major corporation changes since the Comcast deal made in April. Some film critics and commenters assume the layoffs are due to the corporation wanting to cut as many costs as they can to increase their profit margin. Although DreamWorks representatives disagree, commenting that the company would be laying off more employees if they wanted to cut major costs and also their recent films were huge box office hits.
TV and film analysts have commented that DreamWorks animation will help Universal compete with production companies that create popular kid and family content like Disney, Viacom, and Time Warner. DreamWorks animations also carries smaller production arms like AwesomenessTV, which has a huge pre-teen/ teen following, and Nova.
DreamWorks Animations is up 29 percent in their profits this year and has also doubled Wall Street’s expectations with their second quarter earnings.
