Not that this excuses the practice, but I think that you will find that Universal (as well as most major companies) also does this.
This is definitely not exclusive to Disney.
This definitely isn’t just a Disney thing. It would be hard to avoid every single company that engages in this kind of practice.
The only way to avoid dealing with companies that outsource is to move to a country, like India, that is where outsourced jobs go. (Although there’s been quite a few jobs coming my way that are being outsourced from India. Very bizarre, and a little odd submitting an invoice from the U.S. to the folks in India who have to approve it where what I make in a week part-time is what they make in more than a month full-time.)
Sadly, this is common big business practice in all industries these days, and Disney is certainly BIG business. Disney’s public “wholesome for the whole family” image does not apply to it’s business plan. And for a company that employs tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people internationally, 250 is really a pretty small number - especially compared to a car company that closes a plant (to outsource it) and drops 10 times that number.
I’m not “defending” outsourcing - I think it pretty much sucks - but it has become the unfortunate “standard” business model in this era of globalization for any corporation that wants to remain “competitive” in the international market.
Another thought to consider, because Americans tend to be very American-centric in their world view, it’s hard to grasp that (once Shanghai opens), there are as many Disney theme parks outside of the US as there are inside the US. It’s very difficult to find American workers who are okay working the shifts necessary to cover places that are 12 hours or so out of sync with the US. Having an IT staff that is up and functioning at the same time as the places they are supporting is much better than having people half-asleep in the US trying to keep the brain cells running (even though Disney does supply unlimited coffee to their teams).
Looks like they have backtracked on this.