For decades now, moviegoers have watched the best Pixar movies in both theaters and eventually streaming with a Disney+ subscription. The animation studio has given us countless beloved movies, from Toy Story to Inside Out to The Incredibles. Unfortunately, they've also been the subject of massive Disney layoffs, with hundreds reportedly being dropped by the House of Mouse. And some previous comments from a Disney animator showed that history is repeating itself.Disney made some major layoffs on Tuesday, and Pixar was reportedly hit especially hard. This comes shortly after Toy Story 5 crushed at the box office, resulting in plenty of chatter online. As a result, a Variety story from earlier this summer has resurfaced, where a Disney animator spoke about the state of the industry. In their words: You have no idea how frustrating it is to see press release after press release touting how much money our animated film made and how many nominations we got; then [the studio] turns to people who have worked here forever and says, ‘We don’t need you anymore.It certainly feels like history is repeating itself in the wake of the studio's latest shakeup, which reportedly resulted in 116 people being laid off. That's a massive sum of workers, and it happening so shortly after Toy Story 5's release is especially newsworthy. Of course, this isn't the first time Pixar has had serious layoffs, as they did just a few years ago in 2024, resulting in 14% of its staff being dropped aka around 175 jobs.As the Variety story previously reported, folks working in animation have been in a precarious place for years now, despite the genre's ongoing popularity. In addition to Pixar's two big layoffs in just two years, Netflix restructured its animation department in 2023, with jobs and entire projects being eliminated. Just like Pixar's success, those with a Netflix subscription will recall how projects like KPop Demon Hunters have dominated pop culture following their release.(Image credit: Pixar)When considering the genre as a whole, the unnamed animator's quotes do make some sense. And they said this before Pixar went through even more layoffs less than a week later. We'll just have to see how the genre continues to perform in the coming years, and if there's more job security for animators.Funny enough, Pixar's last round of layoffs also happened after a wildly successful movie release. While this time around it was Toy Story 5, back in 2024 they happened shortly after Inside Out 2's release, which made over a billion dollars. And that timing is definitely turning heads.Toy Story 5 is still in theaters now as part of the 2026 movie release list. Hopefully the folks at Pixar are safe from any future layoffs after this latest round of viral firings.