Netflix to Cut About 1,000 Jobs, Its Biggest Layoff Since 2022

Netflix told staff on Wednesday, October 14 that it will cut about 1,000 jobs, roughly 6 percent of its workforce. It is the streaming company's largest round of layoffs since 2022.

Co-chief executives Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters announced the cuts in an email to employees. The Wall Street Journal reported the memo first, and Reuters, the BBC and Variety confirmed the scale and the teams affected on the same day.

Who is affected

The cuts fall hardest on the product, technology, legal and human resources teams, the memo said. The process will differ by country, and managers will tell affected staff soon. Variety reported that senior film staff were also among those leaving, including film vice president Doug Belgrad.

Netflix had about 16,000 full-time employees at the end of 2025, so a 6 percent cut lands close to 1,000 roles. Reports earlier in October had put the planned cut at about 5 percent, before the final figure came in higher.

A strong business, by its own account

The memo did not describe a company in trouble. Sarandos and Peters said the business is strong and growing and stays on track to meet its full-year forecast. They said Netflix will keep spending heavily in the areas with the most impact, and that the cuts are about discipline in where people and money go.

That forecast, set in the company's July results letter, calls for revenue growth of 13 to 14 percent in 2026 and an operating margin of 31.5 percent. Netflix reports third-quarter results on Tuesday, October 20, when investors will test whether those targets still hold.

Growth is slowing

The pressure behind the cuts is pace, not survival. Revenue grew 13.4 percent in the second quarter, down from 16.2 percent in the first three months of the year, and Netflix guided to about 11.7 percent growth for the third quarter. That guide came in below what Wall Street expected.

Sarandos said in September, at a media conference in Los Angeles, that Netflix was not growing as fast as he wanted. Competition is now for total viewing time. YouTube took a record 14.2 percent of United States television viewing in July, on Nielsen figures. Netflix stopped publishing subscriber numbers in 2025 and plans to report viewing hours once a year from January 2027, so revenue and margin are the numbers left for outsiders to judge.

The cuts also follow a failed run at Warner Bros. Discovery. Netflix walked away from buying its studio and streaming assets earlier this year, and Paramount's takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery has since closed, tightening the race among the big streamers.

The last big cut was 2022

Netflix last cut on this scale in 2022, after it lost subscribers for the first time in more than a decade. It let go about 150 staff in May 2022 and about 300 more in June, roughly 450 in total. This round is more than twice that size.

Shares rose 0.7 percent on the day of the announcement. The stock is still down about 25 percent this year, on the figures reported with the layoff news.