Cedar Point hit by layoffs
Cedar Point is laying off full-time staff as part of a broad wave of job cuts by Six Flags Entertainment Corp., just as the summer season kicks off at the Sandusky-based amusement park.
Move them over to food stalls and rides. On a more serious note I wonder if the new company is going to find out it’s too big for its britches and have to close or sell off a lot of assets. It’s already started.
First ride; Magnum 1994
I think a goal for the new company is to sell off some assets. It's not a matter of if, but when, another closure or a park sale is announced.
Six Flags comments on Cedar Point layoffs
Don Helbig used to do PR at KI... now he's writing for The Register? That's a bummer.
Jeff - Advocate of Great Great Tunnels™ - Co-Publisher - PointBuzz - CoasterBuzz - Blog - Music
A former coworker of mine had over 30 years with Cedar Point and is now out of a job. Not an executive level position. That is a long-term dedication to, well, anything, let alone a job...particularly when the average employee tenure these days is under 5 years. Apparently that loyalty is irrelevant.
I don't know what the separation terms were, and maybe there was some type of severance, but the bigger loss is that institutional knowledge. I understand it is a business, and businesses are charged with making business decisions as opposed to human decisions. I simply think this massive shift in values is going to do long term and irrevocable harm to the Cedar Fair parks.
I don’t necessarily believe this shift will cause long-term harm. It seems the primary goal right now is to cut back on an excess of full time employees involved in decision making processes that have been costly and couldn’t be overseen at the executive level. There will still be full time management at each park. It will be monitored more closely. Six Flags seems to be focused on reducing debt and achieving a net gain. According to the 10-K report, the company reported a net loss of nearly $207 million in 2024. Is Zimmerman aiming to create a net gain through park sales and budget cuts to boost his image? Possibly. That said, I haven’t heard particularly positive feedback about SFA or CGA. Admittedly, I’ve never visited either park myself. If certain parks are costing the company too much money, it makes sense to close them, sell them, or sell their valuable land.
What I find especially interesting is Six Flags’ belief that annual attendance is tied directly to annual investments in the parks. What if they just did small updates and improvements in each park for one season? Will attendance fall drastically? My assumption is attendance wouldn’t see a huge drop and this would help the company to achieve a net gain.
TwistedWicker77:
It seems the primary goal right now is to cut back on an excess of full time employees involved in decision making processes that have been costly and couldn’t be overseen at the executive level.
Why is there an assumption that there is an excess of employees? Why is there an assumption that there was/is a lack of oversight and accountability?
Brandon
OldAlum:
Apparently that loyalty is irrelevant.
Loyalty isn't relevant anymore these days, not like it used to be. It's too bad.
That there Clark is an RV.....
djDaemon:
Why is there an assumption that there is an excess of employees? Why is there an assumption that there was/is a lack of oversight and accountability?
Is this a serious question? Why else would they announce cutting over 10% of full time positions company wide? An excess of full time employees would make sense to me. Why would they eliminate the GM and Park President positions at each park if they wanted to monitor these duties more closely at a higher level? Why do you suspect these cuts were made?
Money. They are determined to quickly deliver "value" to shareholders, and the people tasked with that goal have zero vision for what their long term goals should be, zero patience for the comparatively difficult short term actions needed to achieve those goals, and zero institutional incentive to deliver on those goals.
Cutting 10% of full time staff across the board is not a nuanced, surgical plan aimed at achieving "synergies" or whatever C-suite nonsense they're claiming. A mature, reasonably well run park like CP (or KI, or CW, or MA, etc.) is not some upstart company with nonlinear growth whose bloated management team has outgrown the product and is in need of trimming. It's just the quickest and easiest way to save a bunch of money while putting minimal effort into doing so.
Brandon
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