In September, following the long-stalled $8 billion merger of the two media juggernauts, CEO David Ellison told employees in a companywide email they would be required to return to working in-person five days a week or take a buyout, part of a series of efficiency changes to “unlock Paramount’s full potential,” according to the memo, as reported by Fox News.

“As I said during our town hall, some of the most formative moments of my life happened in rooms where I was a fly on the wall, listening and learning. I’ve never seen that happen on Zoom,” Ellison said in the letter.

About 600 employees in the company’s Los Angeles and New York offices at the vice-president level and below took the buyout, according to company disclosures filed on Monday—and the severance packages set Paramount back $185 million. The filings cited restructuring costs “associated with actions to align the business around our strategic priorities.” According to a shareholder letter released Monday ahead of the company’s earnings presentation, Paramount expects to incur $1.7 billion in restructuring expenses.

Prior to the August merger, Paramount endured a brutal stretch following the pandemic, with years of instability and mismanagement culminating in the media giant tapping three co-CEOs to lead the company through tumult. When Skydance CEO Ellison, son of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, took control of the newly merged firm earlier this year, he vowed to return the brand to the prowess in the media world, particularly as it navigates criticisms of political bias.

NBCUniversal similarly issued its employees an ultimatum to return to office four days a week beginning in January 2026 or accept a severance package.

Paramount did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Back-door layoffs

While some employees feel they would rather buck the trend of job hugging in favor of workplace flexibility, employers have been using the RTO push as a strategy for back-door layoffs, where firms expect—and hope—workers will quit as a result of in-person work mandates.

A 2024 BambooHR survey of more than 1,500 U.S. managers found about 25% of C-suite executives hoped for voluntary employee turnover as a result of implementing an RTO policy. About 20% of human resource professionals said their RTO mandates were intentionally meant to reduce headcount.

Paramount, for its part, is looking to cut an additional $1 billion, according to the shareholder letter, following Ellison first outlining plans to save $2 billion following the completed merger in August. The company said in its shareholder letter it will divest from some international businesses and move 1,600 employees from those networks to their respective assets. Last month, Paramount began the process of laying off about 1,000 workers. 

The headcount reductions are occurring in a broader labor market that has transitioned from being low-hire, low-fire to low-hire, more-fire, particularly as companies turn to AI for productivity-enhancing measures, RSM chief economist Joe Brusuelas told clients in a note last week. 

“With businesses investing prodigious sums of capital into productivity-enhancing technology, one should anticipate that firms of all sizes, and large businesses in particular, are poised to shed labor,” Brusuelas said. “As the focus among businesses now turns to efficiencies and increasing productivity, we expect layoffs to increase, causing unemployment to rise.”