Disney Moves Thousands of Jobs Away from California to More 'Business-Friendly' State
International mass media and entertainment giant The Walt Disney Company will be shifting some of its operations from California to Florida, a state with lower taxes.
Fox Business learned of the move expected to take place over the course of eighteen months Thursday after accessing an internal letter from Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s Parks, Experiences and Products chairman.
As part of the move, 2,000 jobs will be going away from Disney’s Burbank, California, corporate headquarters to its new campus in Lake Nonna, a roughly 10,800-acre mixed-use planned community southeast of Orlando International Airport.
BREAKING: When a state punishes success with high taxes and makes doing business difficult… businesses will go elsewhere!https://t.co/M3INyMLkZu
— Brad Polumbo ??⚽️ ?️? (@brad_polumbo) July 16, 2021
A majority of these jobs leaving the Golden State are professional roles in Disney’s Parks, Experiences and Products division, D’Amaro told employees in the letter Fox Business accessed.
The relocating jobs constitute only five percent of Disney’s jobs in the state, and the company will not be moving its headquarters as part of the transfer, the Orlando Business Journal reported.
“This new project will create a dynamic environment to support our expanding business — a brand-new regional campus which will be built in the vibrant Lake Nona community of Orlando,” D’Amaro said, according to The Journal.
D’Amaro also mentioned that part of the reason the company is making the move towards the East Coast is Florida’s “business-friendly climate,” as reported by the outlets.
“This new regional campus gives us the opportunity to consolidate our teams and be more collaborative and impactful both from a creative and operational standpoint,” D’Amaro said.
Disney is the latest addition to a growing list of businesses leaving California over dissatisfaction with how the state treats companies operating there.
According to Fox Business, companies planning to embark on the move eastward include Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Oracle.
Entrepreneurs who already left the state include Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who said in 2020 that he had moved to Texas. Musk alleged that “entitled” California had been taking innovators “for granted a little bit,” MSN reported.
Texas, Arizona, and Florida are three of the top states where people and organizations leaving California, citing regulations and high taxes, are headed, according to CNBC.
While Disney’s move might not be favorable news for Democrat-governed California, it represents more jobs and more opportunity for economic growth for Florida, where Disney is already the largest employer in Central Florida, employing around roughly 60,000 people there.
This announcement really highlights the continued collaboration in our community. We are excited to have Disney expand into our Lake Nona community with high-paying jobs, spurring further investment in our city. https://t.co/uQzcmJUbal
— Mayor Buddy Dyer (@orlandomayor) July 15, 2021
“With Disney’s move and large investment in our community, we are delighted to welcome one of the world’s most recognized brands to Lake Nona. By choosing to build a new regional campus in Lake Nona, Disney will become part of this smart city where cutting-edge ideas turn into realities,” Tavistock Development Co. president Nick Beucher said, according to The Journal. Tavistock is Lake Nona’s owner and developer.
For Orlando in particular, these 2,000 jobs might constitute the biggest corporate move. Until recently, Orlando did not enjoy the success other places in the southeastern United States had with attracting popular companies, The Journal reported.
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