They're furloughed, not laid off. I doubt they'll lose anyone who wasn't intending to leave.

I get that John is down, and I definitely don't have whatever insight led him to say "even if I'm lucky enough to return someday, other people won't be". From my understanding though, a huge portion of corporate around the stores and parks was furloughed because there's not much for them to do at home. Their healthcare is covered and kindness aside it doesn't make much sense for Disney to bleed money. But this wasn't a covert layoff — when things get back to speed Disney wants people back.

Edit: And furloughing the employees allows them to claim unemployment, so that the US government can absorb the impact rather than Disney. Not pretty, but rational in a time of stimulus.

Imagineering is incredibly competitive, and furlough allows employees to pull unemployment benefits temporarily. My guess would be that if Disney can bring them back and get them to work within 2 months, they'll lose very few of the employees.

(this really isn't far from how Denmark is handling the crisis nationally -- freeze employment, have the government pay salaries, and do their best to have companies pick back up where they left off w/ the same workforce).

Maybe Disney too got overrun by MBAs, and their optimization horizon shortened to "until next quarter"?

Is this related to the thing where the bill they passed is paying out more as unemployment than people would be making if they kept their jobs?

It's possible they know exactly what they're doing, are doing everybody a favor, and will just hire them again when everything opens back up.