Netflix is swinging the axe — laying off around 1,000 employees, representing 6% of its workforce, in what is its biggest layoff to date.
Most of the layoffs will affect workers in Netflix’s product, technology, legal and HR teams, co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters wrote in an email to employees Wednesday morning about the layoffs.
“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,” the co-CEOs said in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by Variety (read it in full below).
A Netflix spokesperson said the company did not have any comment beyond the memo from Sarandos and Peters.
Netflix, the industry’s biggest premium streaming provider with more than 325 million customers globally, has posted double-digit growth in both revenue and profits in recent years. In 2025, the company had $45.2 billion in revenue (up 16%) and net income of $11 billion (up 26%). But investors have been concerned that Netflix’s engagement on a per-user basis slowed in the first half of 2026.
“Our business is strong and growing, and we remain on track to deliver our full-year forecast,” Sarandos and Peters said in the memo. For 2026, Netflix projects revenue of $51.0 billion-$51.4 billion (up 13%-14%) and operating margin of 31.5% (versus 29.5% in 2024).
The co-CEOs continued, “We’ll continue to invest aggressively in high-impact areas to improve our service and further drive growth and innovation.” However, they said, “Doing that means making focused choices across the business so we can keep delivering for our members, partners, employees, and investors.”
As of the end of 2025, Netflix had about 16,000 full-time employees.
The last major Netflix layoffs came in 2022, when it axed about 450 staffers following the streamer’s net decline of 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of that year, its first such drop in more than a decade. The company has made additional smaller cutbacks since then, including letting go several dozen members of its global product team earlier in 2026.
Netflix is scheduled to report third quarter 2026 earnings on Tuesday, Oct. 20, after market close. For the second quarter, the streamer posted earnings in line with Wall Street forecasts, with revenue up 13.4% year-over-year to $12.6 billion and operating margin of 33.4% (down from 34.1% in the year-earlier period). But Netflix issued Q3 revenue guidance below analyst expectations, driving the stock price down.
Shares of Netflix were down 0.3% in trading as of 10:10 a.m. ET Wednesday, to $70.26/share, amid a decline in the broader market.
Read the memo from Sarandos and Peters to Netflix staffers:
Team — We wanted to share that we are making a number of organizational changes and, as a result, we’ll be letting go of roughly 6% of our colleagues, with the greatest impact to our product, tech, legal, and HR teams.
Decisions like these are never easy, and we don’t take them lightly. Our top priority today is to support those who are leaving Netflix. The process will vary somewhat by country, but leaders will be connecting with impacted employees soon. If you are leaving, please know that we will support you throughout this transition and make sure you have as much clarity and context as possible. We also want to say thank you. What you’ve built, and the care you brought to Netflix, have made a lasting difference and we will always be grateful.
For the rest of the team, we know you have questions, too. 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. We’ll continue to invest aggressively in high impact areas to improve our service and further drive growth and innovation. Doing that means making focused choices across the business so we can keep delivering for our members, partners, employees, and investors.
We know changes like this are tough, but let’s stay focused. This is one of the most dynamic times in the history of entertainment — and it’s a moment perfectly suited to a company like ours that’s built at the intersection of technology and entertainment. Now it’s on us to step up and meet the moment, together, like we always do.
Ted and Greg