Netflix Cuts 1,000 While Calling Growth Strong

Netflix is expected to cut roughly 1,000 jobs, about 6% of its workforce, according to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters and reported by The Independent. The memo, sent by co-chief executives Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos, said the reductions will fall mainly on product, tech, legal and human-resources teams.

The message to staff was almost brutally corporate in its split-screen logic: the business is “strong and growing,” management said, and still on track to meet its full-year forecast, but discipline in where Netflix puts people and money now matters more. That is the cleaner way to say a mature company is acting like one.

Netflix had about 16,000 employees at the end of the previous year. Its shares, down about 25% over the year, rose 0.7% after the layoff report. Investors have become increasingly focused on viewing time as YouTube and TikTok keep proving that free, creator-driven entertainment is not a niche irritant but a structural rival.

That matters because Netflix already did the glamorous part of the streaming revolution. The harder part is finding fresh growth without the old magic of endless subscriber gains. Ross Benes, a senior analyst at eMarketer, told Reuters the company remains heavily reliant on a subscription model that may be nearing its ceiling and still needs another meaningful revenue stream.

Netflix has been trying to build exactly that through its ad-supported tier, live programming and games. The layoffs suggest those bets are not being abandoned, but they are being forced through a stricter commercial filter. In entertainment, “growth” still sounds aspirational. In a memo like this, it also sounds expensive.