New Delhi: Netflix is set to lay off roughly 6 per cent of its workforce, or about 1,000 employees globally, in its largest round of job cuts since 2022.
According to a CNBC report, co-chief executives Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos informed employees of the layoffs in a company-wide email on Wednesday. Most of the reductions will affect the product, technology, legal, and human resources teams.
“Our mission — to entertain the world — is ambitious, and delivering on it requires us to be disciplined about where we prioritise our people and resources,” Peters and Sarandos wrote in the memo. “Our business is strong and growing, and we remain on track to deliver our full-year forecast.”
Netflix had approximately 16,000 full-time employees at the end of last year. Its shares, which are down around 25 per cent so far this year, rose about 0.7 per cent on the day of the announcement.
Largest layoffs since 2022
The latest cuts mark Netflix’s widest round of layoffs since 2022, when the company reduced its workforce after recording its first subscriber losses in more than a decade. That year, about 450 employees were laid off across two rounds of cuts.
The latest move comes as Netflix faces pressure from media rivals, including free platforms such as YouTube, and a consolidating entertainment industry. Earlier this year, Netflix lost a bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and studio assets to Paramount Skydance.
“We’ll continue to invest aggressively in high-impact areas to improve our service and further drive growth and innovation,” the memo said.
“Doing that means making focused choices across the business so we can keep delivering for our members, partners, employees, and investors.”
Also Read: Netflix ‘not growing as fast as I want’, says co-CEO Sarandos
Netflix looks beyond subscriptions
In recent months, Netflix has expanded beyond its subscription-based business by growing its advertising tier, experimenting with live programming and investing in gaming. Yet engagement metrics have softened, and Nielsen data show Netflix’s share of US television viewing time declining as YouTube’s has risen.
At the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles, Peters had previously acknowledged that the company was not growing as quickly as he wanted.
“Overall, we’re not growing as fast as I want us to, and we’re working on making that move faster,” he said at the conference. “We are, though, also doing things that create a lot of headwind to that number.”
Revenue continues to grow
Despite the layoffs, Netflix remains profitable. In its most recently reported quarter, revenue rose 13 per cent year-on-year to $12.6 billion.
In their memo, Peters and Sarandos also emphasised support for departing employees.
“Decisions like these are never easy, and we don’t take them lightly,” they wrote. “Our top priority today is to support those who are leaving Netflix.”
(Edited by Maryam Hassan)