Netflix lays off nearly 1,000 employees, cuts 6% of workforce as CEO admits growth is slower than expected

Netflix is laying off nearly 1,000 employees, or roughly 6% of its workforce, in one of the streaming giant’s latest rounds of job cuts. The layoffs come just days before the company reports quarterly earnings and weeks after co-CEO Ted Sarandos acknowledged that Netflix isn’t growing as quickly as he would like.

The cuts will primarily affect employees across Netflix’s product, technology, human resources, and legal departments, according to an internal memo obtained by CNBC on Wednesday.

The decision comes as Netflix tries to balance its growth ambitions with tighter spending control. The company maintains that its business remains strong, but the layoffs suggest executives are taking a closer look at where resources are going and which teams are needed to support its priorities.

In an email to employees, Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters explained the reasoning behind the workforce reduction.

“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 executives wrote, CNBC reported.

“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,” the note said.

Netflix declined to provide further details beyond the internal memo, CNBC reported.

Netflix layoffs come as executives face pressure to accelerate growth

The timing is particularly significant.

Netflix is scheduled to report its quarterly earnings on Tuesday, putting the company’s growth, profitability, and spending decisions under fresh scrutiny.

At Bloomberg’s Screentime conference last month, Sarandos offered a candid assessment of the company’s performance.

He said Netflix was “not growing as fast as I want.”

That admission adds context to Wednesday’s layoffs. Netflix is still growing, according to its executives, but management appears dissatisfied with the pace.

The decision to cut jobs across product and technology teams is particularly striking for a company whose business depends heavily on its streaming platform, recommendation systems, and ability to keep viewers engaged.

Those departments help maintain the technology behind Netflix’s service and develop features that shape how subscribers discover and watch content.

The reductions in human resources and legal teams suggest the restructuring extends beyond engineering and product development.

Netflix has not disclosed how many employees will lose their jobs in each department or whether it plans additional workforce reductions.

The layoffs raise a broader question about how Netflix intends to pursue faster growth with a smaller workforce.

For years, the streaming business has been defined by competition for subscribers, content spending, and the constant challenge of keeping audiences engaged. Netflix now faces the task of deciding where additional investment can deliver the greatest returns.

The company has made clear that it intends to continue investing in areas it considers important to its future. Yet Wednesday’s announcement shows those investments will come with difficult staffing decisions.

For affected employees, the immediate reality is job losses at one of the entertainment industry‘s most recognizable technology companies.

For investors, attention now turns to Tuesday’s earnings report, which could offer a clearer picture of the company’s financial performance and management’s expectations for the months ahead.

The central question is no longer whether Netflix is growing. It is whether the company can grow fast enough to satisfy its own leadership, and how much more restructuring it may take to get there.