Netflix will eliminate nearly 1,000 jobs, roughly 6% of its global staff, marking the company’s largest workforce reduction in years.
Co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos delivered the news through a Wednesday memo to employees. Product, technology, legal, and human resources departments will absorb the heaviest impact, according to the executives.
“Decisions like these are never straightforward, and we don’t take them lightly,” Peters and Sarandos wrote in the memo obtained by The Associated Press. They characterized the business as healthy but stressed the need for discipline in allocating people and resources toward future growth and “high impact areas to improve our service.”
Netflix declined to comment beyond the memo.
Financial performance remains robust despite the cuts. Second-quarter profit reached $3.4 billion on revenue of $12.56 billion, representing increases of 9% and 13% respectively from the prior year. Membership growth and price hikes fueled those gains.
However, the company’s third-quarter forecast disappointed Wall Street. Those results arrive next week.
Meanwhile, competitive pressure keeps intensifying across the streaming landscape. Netflix still commands 19% of the market, per data from streaming guide JustWatch, but Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ have closed the gap considerably.
The industry reshuffling accelerated last week when Paramount completed its $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. That deal places HBO Max and Paramount+ under Skydance ownership, with plans to merge the platforms “into a single service over time.” Netflix had initially pursued Warner’s studio and streaming assets late last year but abandoned that bid in February.
Regulatory filings show Netflix employed approximately 16,000 full-time workers worldwide at the end of 2025. Wednesday’s announcement represents the company’s most significant layoff round since 2022. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news.
