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As furloughed employees struggle, layoffs set to hit Disneyland by Sunday, sources say

Since she was furloughed from her job as a server and sommelier at a Disneyland Resort restaurant, Tina Thomas has struggled to cover her rent with her unemployment checks and is four months behind on her car payments.

About 10,000 of the 28,000 layoffs in the company’s parks division will be hitting the Disneyland Resort parks, hotels and stores in Anaheim, according to company sources. Notifications for those layoffs are expected to reach workers via email by Sunday. This file photo from March 18, 2020 shows one of the normally bustling entrances to the Disneyland Resort. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)

On top of that, she is wrestling with dark feelings of loss of a workplace that to her felt more like a home. And then there is the anxiety about when she might return to the job she once hoped would carry her until retirement.


“I’m watching this roller coaster and hoping that it stops soon,” Thomas, 59, said of the last eight months of her life. “It’s so stressful to live this way.”

When California’s theme parks closed in March, employees of Disneyland, Universal Studios Hollywood and other parks were left in limbo, displaced from jobs through no fault of their own, with no idea when — or if — they will be called back.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.