The Netflix corporate office building in Los Angeles, California, on March 8, 2025. (Walter Cicchetti / Getty Images)
By Nick Givas October 14, 2026 at 2:36pm
Netflix laid off 1,000 workers on Wednesday, representing 6 percent of its global staff and marking the streaming platform’s largest cutback since 2022.
Staff members were told the layoffs would affect the tech, legal, product, and human resources departments, according to a company memo obtained by the New York Post.
The memo, also reported on by Deadline, was authored by co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos.
“Decisions like these are never easy, and we don’t take them lightly,” they wrote. “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,” the co-CEOs continued. “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,” Peters and Sarandos concluded.
They noted that the current streaming landscape represents “one of the most dynamic times in the history of entertainment” as they compete with giants like Disney, Amazon, Skydance, and others.
Netflix still has the most global subscribers of any major streaming provider at 325 million, despite shares dipping 40 percent over the last year.
A Bloomberg report from July, however, stated that “Netflix’s biggest hits are losing more than half of their audience after one season.”
Do you think Netflix’s focus on DEI has affected its viewer retention?
“Netflix is struggling to get viewers to stick with its shows for more than a season,” the outlet reported.
“One Piece, one of Netflix’s most-watched shows of 2023, lost more than 30 percent of its audience for the second season. Season two of Beef suffered a drop of more than 70 percent. The Night Agent shed 50 percent of its audience for the second season and another 35 percent for its third season.”
The streaming service has also faced controversy in recent years for its highly charged political content and aggressive marketing of LGBT characters.
One X user pointed this out back in 2020, and Netflix’s official account replied, defending the company’s creative decisions.
sorry you have yet to realize that every gay person is very necessary https://t.co/xTOEcLWryc
— Netflix (@netflix) May 6, 2020
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk called on customers to “Cancel Netflix” last year while reposting a screenshot from Libs of TikTok that showed the company bragging about its diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.
Netflix specifically pointed out how “underrepresented groups” were getting more positions of leadership at the company, while the number of white directors and actors was shrinking.
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Nick Givas has been a reporter for The Daily Caller, Fox News, and served as Managing Editor of the Newsroom at Project Veritas. He’s also hosted three different podcasts, served as a Congressional Communications Director, and had his work featured in The Federalist, Daily Signal, New York Post, and Real Clear Politics.
