Approximately 600 Paramount employees took a voluntary severance package rather than choosing to return to the office five days a week. The company announced the figure in an earnings letter ahead of the company’s third quarter earnings call on Monday.
The return-to-office plan will begin in January 2026, which is credited as part of Paramount’s push to “create a more connected, agile organization,” according to the letter from CEO David Ellison. Phase 1, which has already been completed, involved Paramount employees in New York City and Los Angeles at the vice president level and below either choosing between a voluntary severance package, if they are unwilling or unable to return to office, or working in person.
Since Skydance acquired the company over the summer, there have been several layoffs. Divisions impacted by the cuts included Paramount+, MTV, BET, CBS and more. The company is set to cut another roughly 1,000 employees at a later date.
As of the end of last year, Paramount had approximately 18,600 employees globally and about 3,500 project-based staff, while Skydance had more than 500 employees.
The media giant is also looking at areas such as real estate, procurement and workflow to find efficiencies.
Additionally, leadership has said they would look to transform Paramount into a technological leader in entertainment, with plans to use tools like virtual production and AI, as well as leverage Skydance’s existing relationship with Larry Ellison’s Oracle and move Paramount+, Pluto TV and BET+ to a unified tech stack next year.
Per Paramount, unifying the stacks will improve user experience by improving recommendation as well as capabilities across the ad tech, leading towards incremental subscriber growth internationally.
