SeaWorld To Lay Off Hundreds Of Workers Amid Fall In Attendance

SeaWorld Entertainment, the company that operates 12 theme parks across the United States including the SeaWorlds in Orlando, San Antonio and San Diego, will be laying off a total of 320 workers. The company announced their decision on Tuesday, CNN reports. Workers from all 12 theme parks will be affected and the company announced that the affected workers were notified about the decision on Tuesday.

This is a repeat of the job cuts in 2014, which also saw over 300 employees go. The company has filed an SEC showing that the latest decision is a part of a previously disclosed program that plans on reducing the company’s costs by $65 million. The layoffs will be effective by the year’s end and will include both part-time and full-time employees. The company has said that the affected workers will receive a severance package and “outplacement assistance” from the company.

The last few years haven’t quite been the best for SeaWorld Entertainment and the company has seen its stocks plummet in record numbers. The company’s reputation took a massive hit following the release of the documentary “BlackFish” in 2013. The documentary, which was distributed by CNN, highlighted how the Killer Whales (or Orcas) held in captivity could be dangerous, focusing on one particular SeaWorld orca that killed three people. Furthermore, the last couple of years have seen conservation groups protest hard against SeaWorld, arguing that the Orcas bred and raised in SeaWorld were been misused and abused for the purpose of entertainment. All this has resulted in a sharp decline in attendance; the company reported that 494,400 fewer visitors came to the parks in the first half of 2016 as compared to the first half of 2015, which is a decline of 7.6 percent. SeaWorld Entertainment also pointed out that much of this decline was attributed to its Florida parks which it says were affected by bad weather and a fall in the attendance of Latin American tourists.

SeaWorld Entertainment has tried hard to get the public’s approval back, with the company announcing a $100 million project to increase the size of its Killer Whale tank in San Diego. Furthermore, the company, although initially opposed to the idea, announced back in March that it would stop breeding Orcas in captivity, a move massively hailed by conservation groups that had been urging the company to do so for years. SeaWorld spokeswoman Aimee Jeansonne-Becka, in an email sent to CNNMoney, said the following about their decision.

“We are confident in the changes we’ve made because they let us get back to our roots as a company focused on entertainment and education, and move SeaWorld beyond concerns people have expressed about large animals like orcas under human care.”

“We know that society changed, and we have changed with it.”

SeaWorld CEO Joel Manby had this to say about the decision.

“These decisions — and the debates that preceded them — are about more than these orcas. Bigger questions are at stake than whether any animals anywhere should remain under human care.”

But despite all the effort, things haven’t recovered for the company as indicated by their latest layoff. 320 workers from parks across the U.S., including the likes of SeaWorld Orlando, SeaWorld San Diego, SeaWorld San Antonio, Busch Garden in Florida, Busch Garden in Virginia and Sesame Place in Pennsylvania, will be laid off as a part of a program that aims to reduce the Company’s cost of operation by $65 million.

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