Netflix is laying off about 1,000 employees, or 6 percent of its workforce, in its biggest round of job cuts since 2022, as the streaming company faces growing competition from traditional media rivals and online video platforms such as YouTube, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.
Most of the cuts will affect the company’s product, technology, legal and human-resources teams, a message sent to employees by co-chief executives Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos on Wednesday showed.
“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,” the executives said in the memo.
They added that the business remained strong and growing and was on track to meet its full-year forecast.
Netflix shares, which have fallen about 25 percent so far this year, rose 0.7 percent on Wednesday. The company had around 16,000 employees at the end of last year.
The streaming pioneer has faced questions this year about whether it can sustain the growth that disrupted the US media industry and put pressure on traditional cable television businesses.
Investor concerns have increasingly focused on engagement, or the amount of time users spend watching Netflix. YouTube and TikTok attract viewers with free, user-generated content, giving them a cost advantage over subscription-based services.
Netflix’s unsuccessful pursuit of Warner Bros Discovery’s streaming and studio assets earlier this year added to doubts about its strategy. Paramount completed its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros earlier this month, forming Skydance.
Ross Benes, a senior analyst at eMarketer, said Netflix had struggled to identify another major source of revenue beyond subscriptions, which could be approaching a growth ceiling.
The company has been seeking to diversify through an advertising-supported tier, live programming and gaming.
Netflix’s previous major layoffs came in 2022, when it cut about 450 jobs in two rounds after losing subscribers for the first time in more than a decade.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on Wednesday’s memo.