Paramount on Wednesday began cutting about 1,000 employees, the first wave of a deep staff reduction planned since David Ellison took the helm of the entertainment company in August.

Ellison announced the layoffs in an early morning email to his staff, saying the long-anticipated move was aimed at “building a strong foundation for the future.” Wednesday’s cuts represent about 5% of the organization.

“Today we begin the difficult process of informing impacted team members across the company,” Ellison wrote. “These decisions are never made lightly, especially given their effect on our colleagues who have made meaningful contributions to the company.”

People familiar with the matter but not authorized to comment said the layoffs were being felt throughout the organization, including at CBS, CBS News, cable channels including MTV and Comedy Central, television production as well as the historic Melrose Avenue film studio.

Another 1,000 jobs are expected to be cut at a later date, ultimately bringing the total reduction to about 10% of Paramount’s current workforce, sources said.

The move was expected. Paramount’s new owners — Ellison’s Skydance Media and RedBird Capital Partners — had told investors they planned to eliminate more than $2 billion in expenses, and Wednesday’s workforce reduction was a preliminary step toward that goal.

The company’s staff had grown to nearly 20,000 people in August, when Skydance Media’s roughly 1,300 workers joined Paramount as part of the $8-billion takeover of the media firm long controlled by the Sumner Redstone family.

“In some areas, we are addressing redundancies that have emerged across the organization,” Ellison wrote. “In others, we are phasing out roles that are no longer aligned with our evolving priorities and the new structure designed to strengthen our focus on growth. Ultimately, these steps are necessary to position Paramount for long-term success.”

Paramount has been shedding staff for years.

More than 800 people — or about 3.5% of the company’s workforce — were laid off in June, prior to the Ellison family takeover. At the time, Paramount’s management attributed the cuts to the decline of cable television subscriptions and an increased emphasis on bulking up its streaming TV business. In 2024, the company eliminated 2,000 positions, or 15% of its staff.

Longtime CBS News journalist John Dickerson announced earlier this week that he would exit in December. The co-anchor of “CBS Evening News,” Dickerson has been a familiar network face for more than 15 years, completing tours at“CBS This Morning” and the Sunday public affairs show “Face the Nation.” He was named the network’s evening news co-anchor in January alongside Maurice DuBois to succeed Norah O’Donnell. The revamp, designed in part to save money, led to a ratings decline.

The Paramount layoffs are the latest sign of contraction across the entertainment and tech sectors.

Amazon said this week it was eliminating roughly 14,000 corporate jobs amid its embrace of artificial intelligence to perform more functions. Last week, Facebook parent company Meta disclosed that it was cutting 600 jobs in its AI division.

Last week, cable and broadband provider Charter Corp., which operates the Spectrum service, eliminated 1,200 management jobs around the country.

Los Angeles’ production economy in particular has been roiled by a falloff in local filming and cost-cutting at major media companies.

As of August, about 112,000 people were employed in the Los Angeles region’s motion picture and sound recording industries — the main category for film and television production. The data do not include everyone who works in the entertainment industry, such as those who work as independent contractors.

That was roughly flat compared with the previous year, and down 27% compared with 2022 levels, when about 154,000 people were employed locally in the industry, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The industry has struggled to rebound since the 2023 strikes by writers and actors, which accelerated a sharp pullback in studio spending following the era of “peak TV,” when studios dramatically increased the pipeline of shows to build streaming platforms to compete with Netflix.

“You saw a considerable drop-off from the strikes and the aftermath,” said Kevin Klowden, an executive director at Milken Institute Finance. “The question is, at what point do these workers exit the industry entirely?”

Local film industry officials are expecting a production boost and an increase in work after California bolstered its film and television tax credits.

But Southern California’s bedrock industry is confronting other challenges, including shifting consumer habits and competition from social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok.

“There is a larger concern in terms of the financial health of all the major operations in Hollywood,” Klowden said. “There’s a real concern about that level of competition, and what it means.”

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