It’s not really a secret that Disney makes a LOT of money. But exactly how much money they’ve made recently was revealed recently in the Q1 Earnings Call.
©Disney
During that report, we learned about the state of the company’s financial situation, some of their plans for future Disney+ projects, and how the Disney streaming services are doing. Disney also addressed one problem that’s been a popular concern lately: the staffing shortages in the theme parks.
Disney employees experienced more than 32,000 layoffs at the beginning of the pandemic, which primarily happened at the Disney parks (since they were closed at the time). Now that almost all of Disney’s theme parks are open worldwide, the company has been struggling to fill all the necessary roles.
Hiring Struggles
Disney has not made many comments on their hiring struggles, but we’ve noticed in Disney World that many experiences are still closed or are only available some of the time. This could be due to staffing problems.
Cheshire Cafe Closed
For example, some booths at the 2021 Flower and Garden Festival would close frequently, and there are still a few kiosks and restaurants around the parks that will be unexpectedly closed.
La Isla Fresca
Cheshire Café in Magic Kingdom had been closed on and off for a while (though we have spotted it operating during normal hours recently) and Caravan Road in Disney’s Animal Kingdom is rarely open at all. Do note that some of these locations operate on a seasonal basis.
Caravan Road
Housekeeping is still pretty limited at Disney World hotels, which might be partly due to staffing shortages and partly due to health and safety policies. Currently, guests are being asked whether they’d like housekeeping every other day during their stay, or decline it completely.
Enhanced Cleaning Details
When we’ve asked Cast Members in the parks about the unavailable offerings, we have frequently been told that staffing issues are to blame for certain closures and changes. Disney isn’t the only company that’s experiencing struggles with hiring. Many companies (including stores, hospitals, schools, and more) nationwide are having a hard time finding people to fill all the necessary roles.
Current Situation
So what is the staff situation looking like for Disney now? During the recent Q1 Earnings Call, Disney CEO Bob Chapek reported that “85% of our cast members pretty much say ‘yes’ immediately when we ask them back.”
Gorgeous gorgeous Cast Members
This information confirms a report from last year that said Disneyland brought back about 80% of its workforce when it reopened. This theme park was expected to be back to full staffing by the end of 2021.
Disneyland Cast Members
And Disney has also brought back the College Program, which brings in college-age students to work in Disney World. This program provides a lot of employees in the hospitality, dining, and entertainment sections of the parks.
Cast Members
The international program hasn’t returned just yet, though Disney recently announced that it will be coming back SOON in phases! According to Disney, “participants from select countries whose 2020 program was shortened or canceled [are] now being offered the opportunity to apply.”
Cast Members
Bob Chapek announced that Disney currently employs about 195,000 people. Let’s take a look at how that number compares with previous years.
How Does It Compare?
For perspective, here’s a look at the number of employees Disney has employed over the last several years:
Disney Employees Over the Years (Data from MacroTrends)
You’ll see that the number of Disney employees each year rises pretty steadily from around 130,000 in 2006 to around 220,000 in 2019 with only one decrease between 2008 and 2009. After 2019, the number starts to drop. Between 2019 and 2020, Disney employees decreased by more than 20,000 (an 8.97% decline). The downward trend continued into 2021 when an additional 13,000 employees left or were laid off (a 6.4% decline). So between 2019 and 2022, Disney lost around 33,000 employees.
Annual Growth Rate Graph ©MacroTrends
In this graph, you can see that the green marks an increase in employees, and the red marks a decrease. Although Disney lost employees in both 2020 and 2021, it lost fewer employees in 2021. The beginning of 2022 marks the start of a new upward trend since Chapek reported 195,000 employees, which is an increase from 190,000 in 2021. So in general, Disney is just starting to get back into the “green zone” of gaining employees instead of losing them.
Disney Cast Members at Space 220
Chapek also said this about Cast Members in the parks: “We really haven’t had too big of an issue in terms of retaining and attracting people into our parks.”
Cast Members
So what is the current problem in terms of staffing shortages?
Where Is Disney Still Struggling?
Chapek answered this question during the first-quarter earnings call as well. He said that the two problem areas in terms of staffing have been hospitality and entertainment. “The two areas that have been difficult is hospitality. And right now we’ve got 90% of our hotels at Walt Disney World open, and we’ve got all of our hotels at Disneyland open, but also short of cooks, think kind of short-order cooks.”
Beaches and Cream Cast Members
It sounds like Disney needs more staff for housekeeping at the hotels and quick service restaurants, which is in line with what we’ve seen in the parks and hotels. Hotel rooms are not being cleaned as much as they previously were, and kiosks and smaller counter service restaurants are usually the ones that close unexpectedly.
Caravan Road
In addition, Chapek reported that live entertainment was an area that needs more staff. “The second [area] is live entertainment, and we’re working toward restoring both of those so that we can get up to something that would be more similar to what we’ve seen in the past in terms of the number of people that we put into our parks.”
Mickey’s Celebration Cavalcade
Disney is bringing back a lot of live entertainment this year, including the Festival of Fantasy Parade in Magic Kingdom (which requires more than 100 Cast Members), Fantasmic! in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and the Finding Nemo Musical in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. They’ll need a lot of staff to keep these shows running, so this is likely a big area of focus for hiring right now. We have seen quite a few listings for auditions on Disney’s audition website.
We can’t wait to watch the Festival of Fantasy parade again!
In general, Disney seems to be back on the upward trend for hiring employees, especially in the parks. They still have a ways to go in order to get back to pre-pandemic employee numbers, and the next year will be a crucial time with all of the entertainment offerings returning.
Cast Members in Disneyland
We’ll continue to watch for more news about the staffing shortages in Disney World, so keep following DFB for all the latest updates.
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Yes we have noticed a shortage. The staff is overworked at times. People are usually sympathetic. We are. Disney is trying to do too much at one time. Opening new hotels is one problem. It seems too much griwth too fast and trying to get things back in order too! Just slow down or maybe salaries don’t have to take gigantic steps. You are squeezing very loyal customers. And vacation club member s Just stop. There is an end to everything
My hubby was hired at Disney and they only gave him 12 hours a week. He is a grown adult and cannot live on 12 hours a week. It was in food service. He is at the competition and full time.
Perhaps Disney should pay a better wage. Even in low cost / wage Florida, Disney is low paying. Yet The CEO more than doubled his wage this year. Disney is posting record profits in the Parks and Resorts.
If Disney wants to continue, they are going to have to stop being so money hungry that it is affecting everything but the pockets of management. Guest costs are up while the benefits of Resort stay decline more and more. Right now, attendance is way up, But I suspect that will not continue as the pandemic eases more and people start moving around the country more.
When people start thinking outside the box more people will be stepping away from the very expensive Disney vacations.
This is a twofold problem. First, too many people and companies bought into the government Covid hysteria. Second, Disney buckled to the pressure to lay cast members off when it was unnecessary. Now they are reaping what they sewed.
Until they bring back all the experience and cleaning staff I will not return to Disney World or it’s hotels. It’s too expensive to get partial benefits.
Walt Disney operates its Florida theme parks like a discount airline. The basic price of admission goes up or down based on demand and buying a ticket gets you in the door and that’s it. If you want any extras — everything from food to the ability to cut the line at popular rides — you will pay extra.
It hasn’t always been like this at Disney World and the company’s three other Florida theme parks. Dynamic pricing — where tickets cost more on days with higher demand — began in 2016 and that kicked off a slow change in how the parks operate.
Most recently that involved the company getting rid of its free FastPass+ program, which allowed everyone to cut the line at a few rides per day in favor of the paid Lightning Lane and Genie+ programs.
Those paid programs have clearly benefited the company’s bottom line, according to Chief Executive Bob Chapek’s remarks during Disney’s first-quarter earnings call.
“In the quarter, more than a third of domestic park guests purchased either Genie+, Lightning Lane, or both,” he said. “That number rose to more than 50% during the holiday period. While demand was strong throughout the quarter at both domestic sites, our reservation system enabled us to strategically manage attendance. In fact, their stellar performance was achieved at lower attendance levels than 2019.”
Disney can make more money with fewer visitors and that bodes well for the company when the impact of the pandemic fully goes away and guest counts return to normal. Disney, however, hasn’t stopped rolling out new ways for park visitors to spend even more money.
Disney Wants Guests to Have (and Pay for) a Moment
If you have visited Disney World with your family, you know that sometimes there’s a disconnect between your memories of your trip. Nobody remembers the waiting in line, the crying, and kids pushed to the edge of exhaustion while the adults just want someplace to sit down.
Nobody takes pictures of the frustrating parts of a Disney vacation. Vacationers want to remember the good parts and capture photos that show smiling faces in front of idealized backdrops. Disney now has a new way to make that happen and it’s another revenue opportunity for the company.
Disney has expanded its “Capture Your Moment” private-photo session from Magic Kingdom, where it was first introduced, to Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Basically, the program lets visitors to those three parks book a photographer to take some special pictures.
The company website explains how it works:
“Reserve a personalized 20-minute photo session that captures the fun and excitement of your special day — and your own unique style! We’ll get everyone in the picture and give you lots of different shots to choose from. Then just purchase your favorites to download and share!”
You can book Capture Your Moment photo sessions at Magic Kingdom now and at Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, beginning Feb. 24 and March 21 respectively. The company has raised the price for the photo sessions from $50 to $79, and there’s a catch if you actually want to get access to your photos.
“While photos are not included in the price of your personalized photo session, Guests who have Memory Maker, Memory Maker One Day, a qualifying Walt Disney World Annual Pass with a Disney PhotoPass benefit, or a Walt Disney World Annual Pass with the Disney PhotoPass Downloads add-on can download these Capture Your Moment photos at no extra cost.”
Basically, you need to buy a photo package to make use of the added-charge photo session. That’s some true Disney magic (at least for shareholders).
Disney Wants Every Dime — and Gets Most of Them
Disney has realized that it has limited inventory with its theme parks (and even more limited inventory until the company fully goes back to prepandemic capacity limits).
Because of that, it understands that most visitors — people already shelling out over $100 per day or over $2,000 for a family of four visiting for four or five days — probably won’t pass on add-ons that enhance their trip.
Yes, you can be the family that packs snacks or eats only off the property, but the success of Genie+ and Lightning Lanes suggests that most guests won’t do that.
“As we return to a more normalized environment, we look forward to more fully capitalizing on the extraordinary demand for our parks, along with the already realized yield benefits that took shape this quarter,” Chapek added.
Some of this money will, of course, go into improving the parks, which have a slew of new rides planned over the next few years.
But Disney has realized that as long as its theme parks are a can’t-be-skipped vacation for many families, price doesn’t matter. That’s something very few businesses can say, but it’s clearly true for Disney World.
Not a lot of people want to work part-time with benefits and low wages. Even though Disney is a union shop, the employees have very weak contract. The skilled trades and managemment personnel work full time and most likely make a decent wage as well as better benefits, but all the others probably don’t make much at all.
It’s pretty simple, if they are having a hard time finding people to work, offer them a better deal (i.e. money, benefits, ect). If Chapek can make 32 million a year, Disney can afford to pay their front line employee’s more.
Yes that was my point in my previous comment. Executive salaries are outrageous
Disney shot themselves in both feet with the vaccination mandate for employees. I was set to begin employment with Disney as a Security CM. Then they announced that all employees would have to be vaxxed the week before I was to start. I called and declined to start my employment with them. I would imagine I wasn’t the only one to do that. Then Florida made it illegal to require proof of vaccination for any employer in the state of Florida. In the time between, I found a lot better and higher-paying employment.
Disney needs to learn how to better read the room.
“Money Talks” low wages , part time hours, ever changing shifts/schedules, no set schedules, little to no benefits, working conditions.
It’s time for Disney to renegotiate the current labor contract and increase employee wages, more better hours, offer better scheduling, give better health benefits with less or no cost , just to name a few. Again, money talks.
All the comments sound good but the basic fact revolves around economics and the laws of supply and demand. Like it or not, Disney has built a better mouse trap and now they cannot handle the crowds who end up at the front door. The parks have become to small to handle the influx of guests arriving from around the world, especially from central and South America. The only way to slow down the rush to Orlando is to raise the price to were it becomes too expensive for the lower and lower middle class. The answer to the Florida dilemma is to build another gate to relieve some of the guest attendance pressure on the existing 4 parks… but this only repeats the over crowding issue. It is all coming down to those that can afford to visit, and those that cannot, and the cannons who will be left out will make room for the can afford Disney. Too bad.