Paramount to Lay Off 2,000 Employees

Media|Paramount to Lay Off 2,000 Employees

Paramount on Wednesday began laying off more than 2,000 employees, a long-awaited consequence of its merger with the Hollywood studio Skydance.

The cuts, announced internally by David Ellison, Paramount’s chief executive, will initially include roughly 1,000 employees in the United States across many divisions, including CBS News, the Paramount film studio and cable networks like MTV, Nickelodeon and BET. The rest of the cuts, some of which will affect Paramount’s international employees, will come later.

Overall, Paramount is planning to cut roughly 10 percent of the combined company.

In a memo to employees Wednesday, Mr. Ellison said that the cuts were focused on eliminating redundant jobs or phasing out positions not in keeping with Paramount’s evolving priorities.

“These decisions are never made lightly, especially given their effect on our colleagues who have made meaningful contributions to the company,” Mr. Ellison said in the memo.

Paramount employees, who have been subjected to near-annual corporate reorganizations, have been bracing for layoffs for months. When Skydance announced its merger with Paramount last year, the company said it was looking for $2 billion in synergies, Wall Street argot for cost-cutting.

Mr. Ellison signaled earlier this year that major changes were coming. In September, he sent a memo telling employees they would be expected to return to the office five days a week in the coming months. Employees unwilling or unable to return to the office would be eligible for a severance package, he said.

Some of Paramount’s most senior employees have already announced their departures as the layoffs have drawn near. Pam Kaufman, the head of Paramount’s international business, told employees in September she was leaving after more than a quarter-century. Chris Aronson, the president of U.S. distribution for Paramount Pictures, said this month that he would be departing in December.

Successive waves of layoffs have become the new normal in Hollywood as executives merge companies and try to wring out billions in costs after those deals close. The specter of further cuts has been the talk of Hollywood in recent days as Mr. Ellison plans a bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN, HBO and the Warner Bros. film studio.