Netflix cuts nearly 1,000 jobs, its biggest layoff round since 2022

Netflix is cutting about 6% of its workforce, close to 1,000 jobs, in its largest round of layoffs since 2022. Co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos told employees in a memo on Wednesday 14th October 2026 that most of the roles are in product, technology, legal and human resources. Netflix had about 16,000 full-time employees at the end of 2025, and 6% of that is 960, which squares with the figure of nearly 1,000. Reports earlier this month had put the cut at 5% of staff.

The memo describes a company in good shape. It says the business is strong and growing and on track to meet its full-year forecast, that Netflix will keep investing in high-impact areas, and that the process will vary somewhat by country, with affected employees hearing from the company soon. Netflix set that forecast in its July results letter: revenue growth of 13% to 14% for 2026 and an operating margin of 31.5%, which is the share of revenue left after the costs of running the service.

The growth behind it has been slowing. Revenue rose 13% in the second quarter, Netflix forecast about 12% for the third, and that forecast landed below what Wall Street expected, with the shares falling about 8% after the results. In September, Sarandos told a media conference in Los Angeles that Netflix is not growing as fast as I want us to. Competition is for viewing time: YouTube took a record 14.2% of US television viewing in July on Nielsen’s figures. Netflix stopped publishing subscriber numbers in 2025 and will report viewing hours once a year from January 2027, so revenue growth and operating margin are the measures left for outsiders to judge it by.

The last cuts on this scale came in 2022, after Netflix reported its first subscriber decline in a decade. It laid off about 150 people in May and another 300 in June, 450 across the two rounds by our count, so this round is more than twice as large. It also undoes part of a hiring run: Netflix had about 13,000 employees at the end of 2023, and 960 is roughly a third of the 3,000 added since.

The cuts also follow Netflix’s failed attempt to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business. Netflix agreed to that deal late last year, then declined to match Paramount Skydance’s bid in February, and Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery closed earlier this month.

Netflix declined to comment beyond the memo. The next test of its “on track” claim comes on Tuesday 20th October 2026, when it publishes third-quarter results at about 1:01pm Pacific. Those results will show whether Netflix still stands by the 13% to 14% growth and 31.5% margin it set in July, the two numbers that claim rests on.