Netflix has begun its biggest round of layoffs in four years, cutting roughly 1,000 jobs — about six per cent of its global workforce — in a restructuring that reaches from its product and technology teams into its film and television executive ranks.
Co-chief executives Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos announced the cuts in an email to employees on Wednesday, according to reports carried by Reuters. The company said the bulk of the reductions would fall on its product, technology, legal and human-resources teams. In the memo, the executives said the business remains ‘strong and growing’ and on track to deliver its full-year forecast.
Executive departures across film and television
The restructuring has also swept up senior content executives. Film division vice-president Doug Belgrad, a former president of Columbia Pictures who joined Netflix in 2024 as film chairman Dan Lin’s first major hire, has exited, according to trade reports, along with Sheroum Kim, who had served as director of independent films since 2019. On the television side, director-level executives including Lisa Lang McMullen, James Oh, Carolina Garcia and Andrew McQuinn were among those let go.
A growth story under strain
The layoffs land amid mounting pressure on the streamer’s growth story. Sarandos acknowledged last month at the Bloomberg Screentime conference that Netflix is ‘not growing as fast as I want us to,’ while engagement rose just two per cent year on year in the first half of 2026, according to reports. The company lost out on major media deals this year, including the Warner Bros Discovery bidding war won by Paramount Skydance, and its shares have fallen roughly a quarter in 2026.
The shake-up comes while the industry’s awards-season machinery keeps turning — Other Mommy topped the weekend box office with $27.5M, and Chase Infiniti’s turn in ‘The Julia Set’ has been winning praise after its Toronto premiere — a reminder that the content business Netflix is cutting to protect is still the one investors judge it by.
