Disney’s first of three rounds of layoffs will start this week

Disney’s planned job cuts that will eliminate 7,000 jobs are about to begin, as the first of three rounds of layoffs will start this week, CEO Bob Iger said in a memo to employees obtained by CNBC.

Staff affected by this first round will hear from leaders “over the next four days,” according to Iger. The second round of cuts, which is set to encompass “several thousands” of people, will happen sometime in April. The third round will happen “before the beginning of the summer.”

Iger first revealed in February that the company was planning the cuts, meaning that employees have been waiting for weeks to know if they’ll still have a job at Disney. And given that rumors of potential layoffs surfaced soon after Iger came back as CEO in November, the wait has arguably been even longer than Iger’s official announcement.

“As I shared with you in February, we have made the difficult decision to reduce our overall workforce by approximately 7,000 jobs as part of a strategic realignment of the company, including important cost-saving measures necessary for creating a more effective, coordinated and streamlined approach to our business,” Iger wrote in the memo. In February, Iger said that he is “targeting” $5.5 billion in cost savings at the company.

Disney is just the latest of many Big Tech companies to announce sweeping layoffs, with Meta and Amazon cutting thousands more jobs than originally planned.