Netflix Cuts 1,000 Jobs in Its Biggest Layoffs Since 2022

Netflix eliminated roughly 1,000 jobs on Wednesday, cutting about 6 percent of its global workforce in the company's largest round of layoffs since 2022. The reduction, confirmed in an internal memo from co-chief executives Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, fell heaviest on the streamer's product, technology, legal and human-resources divisions, but it also swept out a cluster of television executives who had overseen original series and animation development.

The cuts land five business days before Netflix is due to report third-quarter results, and they arrive amid growing skepticism on Wall Street about whether the world's largest streaming service can keep expanding as quickly as it once did. In their note to staff, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Sarandos and Peters framed the decision as a matter of discipline rather than distress.

"Our mission — to entertain the world — is ambitious, and delivering on it requires us to be disciplined about where we prioritize our people and resources. Our business is strong and growing, and we remain on track to deliver our full-year forecast."

The Numbers

Netflix had approximately 16,000 full-time employees at the end of 2025, according to the company's own annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, meaning Wednesday's reduction touches roughly one in seventeen workers. Most of those jobs are concentrated in the United States, where the filing shows the company keeps about two-thirds of its staff.

The layoffs are not a response to a weak balance sheet. Netflix's revenue for the first six months of 2026 reached $24.8 billion, up from $21.6 billion a year earlier, according to its most recent quarterly filing with the SEC. But growth in viewing has not kept pace with growth in revenue: members watched more than 97 billion hours of Netflix programming in the first half of the year, an increase of only about 2 percent from a year earlier, according to figures cited by NBC News. Netflix shares, meanwhile, have fallen by roughly a quarter so far in 2026, a decline TheWrap tied to persistent Wall Street anxiety over the slowdown in engagement growth, even as the company continues to post sizable profits.

A Streaming Giant Under Pressure

Netflix has avoided large-scale layoffs for most of the past four years, after cutting roughly 450 jobs across two rounds in 2022 following its first subscriber losses in a decade. The company has since stopped disclosing quarterly subscriber counts altogether, shifting its public reporting toward viewing-hours data and advertising metrics instead.

The pressure building this year is different in kind. Rather than losing subscribers outright, Netflix is losing a larger fight for the hours people spend looking at screens. Sarandos acknowledged as much late last month at Bloomberg's Screentime media conference, saying bluntly that the company is "not growing as fast as I want us to, and we're working on making that move faster." Nielsen's monthly Gauge report on U.S. television viewing found Netflix's share of total TV time at 7.8 percent in July, even as YouTube's share climbed to a record 14.2 percent — a gap that has become a recurring talking point for Wall Street analysts weighing in on the stock.

The timing of the cuts also follows a costly setback: Netflix spent much of the year pursuing Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming assets, a bid it ultimately lost earlier in 2026 to Paramount Skydance, according to TechCrunch, which reported that Netflix had seen significant value in the studio library, HBO's catalog and cable networks such as CNN that came with that deal. With that avenue for inorganic growth closed off, the company's efforts to broaden its reach now rest on initiatives closer to home: expanding its advertising tier, investing in live sports and events, building out gaming and children's programming, and courting creators who built their audiences on YouTube and TikTok.

That gap has not gone unnoticed by the analysts who cover the stock. HSBC downgraded Netflix to "hold" from "buy" in late September, cutting its price target as it pointed to YouTube's growing dominance of television viewing as the central risk to Netflix's outlook. Wells Fargo went further the same week, moving to "underweight." Other analysts remain more sanguine about the company's long-term position — Netflix still carries an overall "buy" consensus on Wall Street, reflecting confidence in its profitability even as growth expectations get recalibrated.

Who Is Losing Jobs

Beyond the product, technology, legal and HR staff who made up the bulk of Wednesday's cuts, the reorganization also reached into Netflix's television development ranks. Among those let go were Lisa Lang McMullen, most recently director of overall deals and series; James Oh, director of drama series; and Carolina Garcia and Andrew McQuinn, both directors of original series, according to a trade-press accounting of the personnel changes, which also named three managers affected — Jason Pan in original series, Aaron Davidson in adult animation comedy and Dan Evans in original animation. Netflix's film division was not spared either: vice president Doug Belgrad and executive Sheroum Kim both exited as part of the same restructuring.

The reductions are global in scope, affecting staff across multiple countries rather than a single office or division, though Netflix has not detailed country-by-country breakdowns. The company has told employees it will handle severance and transition support on a country-by-country basis, reflecting the patchwork of labor rules it must navigate as one of the entertainment industry's largest multinational employers.

What Comes Next

Netflix is scheduled to report third-quarter financial results on Oct. 20, after markets close, according to the investor notice the company posted in September. Sarandos, Peters, finance chief Spence Neumann and the company's investor-relations team are expected to field analyst questions in a live-streamed interview shortly after the release, where the restructuring and its projected savings will almost certainly come up alongside the usual scrutiny of engagement trends.

Netflix is not alone in trimming headcount as the economics of streaming mature. Disney has cut hundreds of positions this year under chief executive Josh D'Amaro, and industry observers widely expect Paramount Skydance to pursue its own reductions as it integrates Warner Bros. Discovery's operations. For Netflix, Wednesday's cuts amount to a bet that a leaner organization, rather than a larger one, is what it will take to keep pace with rivals that no longer look like traditional television networks or movie studios, but like YouTube and TikTok — platforms built to hold attention in increments measured in seconds rather than hours.