Netflix is cutting about 1,000 jobs, or roughly 6% of its global workforce. It is the streaming giant’s biggest round of layoffs since 2022, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. Co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos told employees in an email on Wednesday morning, a week before the company reports its third-quarter earnings.The cuts come at an awkward time for Netflix. Viewer engagement has slowed, and its shares have fallen more than 40% over the past 12 months. In the email, the two CEOs framed the move as a question of focus. “Our mission, to entertain the world, is ambitious,” they wrote, adding that delivering on it means being disciplined about where the company puts its people and money.
Netflix layoffs hit product, tech, legal and HR teams the most
According to WSJ, most of the job cuts fall within the product, technology, legal and human resources teams. Netflix had about 16,000 full-time employees at the end of last year.Peters and Sarandos told staff the company will keep investing heavily in the areas that make the biggest difference, but that this calls for sharper choices across the business. They also said Netflix remains on track to meet its full-year earnings forecast.The last time Netflix cut jobs on this scale was in June 2022. That round followed the company’s first quarterly loss of subscribers in more than a decade.
Slowing viewer engagement is Netflix’s biggest headache
Netflix still holds on to its subscribers well. It has about 325 million paying members, and its US cancellation rate of just over 2% is the lowest in the industry, according to analytics firm Antenna.The worry is how much time those subscribers spend watching. Global viewing hours rose just 2% in the first half of 2026, to 97 billion. In July, Netflix also said it would publish its detailed engagement report once a year instead of twice, a change that unsettled investors.Nielsen data tells a similar story. Netflix accounted for 7.8% of TV viewing in the US in July, behind YouTube’s 14.2% and down from 9% in December, when hits like Stranger Things pushed its share up. At a Bloomberg event in late September, Sarandos admitted, “we’re not growing as fast as I want us to.”To win back attention, Netflix has added video podcasts, shows from YouTube creators, live sports and live channels to its service.
Netflix games and Netflix House are struggling to pay their way
Some of Netflix’s newer bets have not delivered. The company shut its Night School Studio in August and plans to close Moonloot, its Helsinki-based games studio. Greg Lombardo, who led Netflix House, the company’s physical attractions in Philadelphia and Dallas, is leaving after seven years.Netflix also lost the bidding war for Warner Bros Discovery’s studios and streaming business to Paramount Skydance, which completed its $110 billion acquisition earlier this month. Sarandos has said Netflix is not hunting for a replacement deal and expects growth to remain largely organic.Netflix is not alone in trimming staff. Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon have all made cuts in recent months. The next test comes on October 20, when Netflix reports third-quarter earnings after the US market closes, which falls in the early hours of October 21 in India. That report will be the first look at how a smaller Netflix plans to get people watching more again.
