Film production and media group Paramount Global announced Thursday, at the same time as its quarterly results, that it will cut 15% of its staff in the US, ahead of a merger with production company Skydance Media.

This translates into the layoff of about 2,000 employees, according to US media estimates.

“We had announced in June that we had identified $500 million in cost savings across the business,” part of “two billion dollars” in cost savings indicated by Skydance. “To make these savings, we will reduce our workforce by 15%,” Group Chief Executive Chris McCarthy said on a conference call with analysts.

The layoffs concern jobs that would overlap after the merger with Skydance, notably in the areas of “marketing and communications,” as well as administrative services (accounting, legal, technology support, etc.).

The layoffs will begin “in the coming weeks” and the process is expected to be completed “by the end of the year,” according to Mr. McCarthy.

Paramount Global and Skydance Media announced their merger in early July as the conglomerate, which includes movie giant Paramount Pictures and television networks such as CBS, had long sought a partner.

The merger means that Paramount Global is being acquired by Skydance and the latter’s shareholders will take control of the new entity.

It’s a big step for Skydance, which is relatively unknown to the general public, although it has produced films in the Mission: Impossible series and Top Gun: Maverick, and is debt-free and not publicly traded. It was founded in 2010 by David Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.

Among the stakes for the new scheme is the reorganization of streaming service Paramount+. The platform had more than 71 million subscribers at the end of March, but the group has suffered losses of nearly $3.5 billion because of it over the past two years.