[Disclaimer: I'm not the anonymous person mentioned in that article, but I was laid off because of the Disney outsourcing]
The article is correct. In all previous Disney tech layoffs (in the 10+ years I was there), the people impacted were allowed back as contractors, many for the firm that the work was outsourced to. This is common in IT everywhere, and is often a win-win for the people losing their jobs (they get to stay, but under different arrangements) and the contracting firm (they get to use the experienced people already performing the work). Its also a win for customers.
In this situation we were told it in our Q&A sessions it would be the same, and Disney even set up talks between me and contracting firms. Then 2 weeks after the 1/31 end date (back in Feb mind you), I also heard from a firm they'd been told they aren't allowed to submit the people let go in Jan (even if their status of termination was retirement) and that "no explanation was given". All my existing conversations with firms came to a sudden silence with "no longer open". There are no non-complete clauses or conflict of interest involved here, and since the employees were not previously contractors there is no "avoidance to hire" time restriction. I called HR (in Feb) and they claimed there was no such ban policy, but obvious for a story to talk about it as recent news means it's been in place for months now. official or not, it's preventing tech people from working.
I can envision several reasons why their new CIO would do this; none very flattering for the company. Disney did take on-going needed roles filled by employees, mostly older or long-term staff with good performance reviews, and turn them into contracted work to save money. They're taking a PR hits now for using the H-1B Visa system for eliminating staff instead of hiring hard to find skills, forcing staff to train their own career inexperienced replacements under threat of loss of severance, then being prevented from returning even in "best fit" circumstances, and doing all this during record profits.