Due to the construction of a new Disney campus in the Orlando community of Lake Nona, the company announced that it will delay relocating thousands of its California employees to Florida, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Originally, Walt Disney Co. said last July that it planned to move about 2,000 workers to Florida over an 18-month period. But now, the construction of the new campus has delayed the move for about three years, as Disney is aiming to open it up in 2026.
Some employees have already moved from California to Florida, but a Disney spokeswoman said in a emailed statement that because of the delay until 2026, the company wanted to “continue to provide flexibility to those relocating."
"Therefore, where possible, we are aligning the relocation period with the campus completion," Jacquee Wahler told the LA Times.
The workers who had been planning to move across the country included theme park designers (or Imagineers) and consumer product workers. Disney plans to invest about $864 million to building the new campus in Lake Nona, and it was expected to open up by December 2022, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
"Around 90% of the affected jobs are in Imagineering, the company’s main creative design division, Disney analyst Jim Hill told the Orlando Sentinel in November."
Disney Parks Chairman Josh D'Amaro said in the relocation announcement in July 2021 that they expected most Southern California-based Disney Parks, Experiences and Products workers to be asked to relocate to Florida.
"While we are still determining exactly which of our team members will be based there, we expect that most Southern California-based DPEP professional roles that are not fully dedicated to the Disneyland Resort or, in some cases, the international parks business, will be asked to relocate to this new Florida campus," D'Amaro said, according to WDWMagic.
"Expanding our already significant DPEP footprint in Florida makes sense. In addition to Florida's business-friendly climate, 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."
Disney was expected to receive more than $570 million in tax breaks by moving the employees from California to Florida. The Orlando Sentinel noted that the average salary for a worker who was supposed to relocate was about $120,000.
The announcement of the delayed relocation comes while Disney and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have been battling it out over the company's response to the "Parental Rights in Education" bill, more commonly referred to as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, that was signed in March.
Although, Wahler told the Orlando Sentinel that "the dispute with DeSantis had nothing to do with the delay."
Following Disney CEO Bob Chapek's response to the new law, DeSantis signed a bill in April that eliminated Disney's Reedy Creek Improvement District. He signed another bill in May that removed Disney's exemption from the Big Tech bill, which is aimed to fine companies like Facebook and Twitter "for each statewide political candidate removed from their platforms."
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