Owned by Walt Disney Co., sports cable network ESPN is ditching about 350 employees, and this could be made public by the company by early Wednesday. The reduction represents about 4.3% of ESPN's workforce.
The cable network is forced to take the step following rising programming costs and bad advertising sales simply because TV consumers are ditching cable for streaming programs. In August this year, Disney revealed the cable networks operating cost for the third fiscal quarter increased by 7% to $2.1 billion while advertising revenue dropped.
But in a contrasting development, Amazon is hiring about 100,000 temporary workers for seasonal jobs during this holiday season, and this number stands for 25% increase from 2014's 80,000 hired seasonal workers; and this is separate from the 25,000 full-time workers employed in the US in recent months.
Comparatively, Target hired 70,000 seasonal workers while Macy's hired 85,000 and Wal-Mart employed 60,000 with hopes of increased sales during this coming holiday season. Meanwhile, Amazon holds steady in expanding infrastructure to uphold its large logistics goals for this holiday season.
ChannelAdvisor executive chairman Scot Wingo, an analyst who tracks Amazon closely, revealed that the world's largest online retailer has increased its global facilities from 155 warehouses last year to 173 facilities this year. This will help Amazon to cut down on delivery times and the costs of delivering to the doorsteps of customers anywhere.
"Other retailers are going to struggle to come close," Wingo writes in a blog post. "They do not offer nearly the same level of selection and efficiency that Amazon's logistical network provides."
Amazon is not resting on its oars as it thrives to crush the competition from rivals this holiday season, and its workforce and infrastructure have poised to give it better leverage in meeting its end-of-the-goals business goals much better than anyone else in the online retail business.