Media and entertainment giant Disney, whose theme parks are sometimes described as the happiest place on Earth, plans to cut 7,000 jobs and lay off 3.2 percent of its 220,000 employees. It’s part of a $5.5 billion cost-saving plan — the latest in a series of media industry layoffs.

Video conferencing platform Zoom plans to lay off about 1,300 employees or 15 percent of its staff. The latest in a series of tech companies to announce significant job cuts, Zoom is now dialing back the extraordinary growth it experienced after the covid pandemic sent demand skyrocketing for digital services.

Shares of both companies rose on the news of layoffs — Disney by almost 8 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday, Feb. 8 and Zoom by close to 9 percent in midday trading Tuesday following the announcement.

The 66th largest corporation in America, Disney has a net worth of $203.92 billion as of Feb. 08, 2023. Zoom, with a net worth of $25.2 billion as of Feb. 8, 2023, has been profitable for four years and has increased its net income each year, while several of the largest tech companies have never posted a profit.

More than 120 large U.S. companies—including tech startups, major banks, manufacturers and online platforms—conducted major rounds of layoffs in 2022, cutting nearly 125,000 employees, according to the Forbes layoff tracker. Layoffs continue in 2023.

These companies include Peloton, BuzzFeed and Complex Media, Facebook and Apple, Wells Fargo, crypto exchange Gemini, and Netflix. Warner Bros. Discovery, Dotdash Meredith and Vox Media are also laid off employees in recent months.

Buy-now, pay-later giant Affirm announced Wednesday that it is cutting 19 percent of its workforce — about 500 people — as earnings results missed analyst expectations. CEO Max Levchin wrote in a note to employees, “The root cause of where we are today is that I acted too slowly (as) macroeconomic changes unfolded.” The CEO cited a “mid-2022” shift as the Fed increased rates.

Leaders of e-commerce-related companies have often talked about the “pull-forward effect” the pandemic has had on their industry, where anticipated demand in the future arrived all at once during the pandemic, Axios reported.

Despite the layoffs at prominent tech and media companies, the U.S. labor market is strong and U.S. unemployment is around 3.4 percent — a 54-year low according to the latest government data. Total employment in the U.S increased by 517,000 jobs in January, almost three times what economists expected, especially in industries such as construction, hospitality and healthcare.

The Disney job cuts coincide with a restructuring that will split the company into three core businesses: Disney Entertainment, ESPN and Disney Parks, CEO Bob Iger said during a call to discuss the company’s quarterly results. “I have enormous respect and appreciation for the talent and dedication of our employees worldwide. And I’m mindful of the personal impact of these changes,” Iger said.

In a memo to employees, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said the layoffs would impact every part of the organization and come at a time when the company’s workforce and “the world transitions to life post-pandemic” amid “uncertainty of the global economy.”

Yuan said he was reducing his salary for the coming fiscal year by 98 percent and foregoing a corporate bonus and other executives would take a significant pay cut. He acknowledged he had made “mistakes” in how quickly the company grew during the pandemic.

“As the CEO and founder of Zoom, I am accountable for these mistakes and the actions we take today– and I want to show accountability not just in words but in my own actions,” he wrote.

Zoom staffed up fast at the onset of the pandemic to support booming demand as many people under lockdown turned to it to video chat with friends and co-workers. “Within 24 months, Zoom grew 3x in size to manage this demand while enabling continued innovation,” Yuan wrote.