By Joe Flint and Jessica Toonkel

Netflix is cutting 6% of its staff, or roughly 1,000 positions globally, its biggest round of layoffs since 2022, as it struggles with slowing growth and customer engagement.

Co-Chief Executives Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos said in an email to employees Wednesday morning that the bulk of the cuts would be in the streaming giant's product, tech, legal and human-resources teams.

"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," they told employees.

Netflix, confronting flagging engagement, has tried a number of ways to get subscribers to spend more time on its platform, including adding live channels of programming as well as bundling with other streaming services. It has added video podcasts and YouTube creators' shows to its service, as well as adding live sports and events.

While its rate of customer defections is by far the best in the industry at just over 2% in the U.S., according to Antenna, shares have fallen more than 40% over the past 12 months.

Netflix is not alone among tech and entertainment companies making cuts. Disney and Amazon have both significantly reduced headcount in the past several months.

Peters and Sarandos said Netflix will "continue to invest aggressively in high impact areas" but that doing so means "making focused choices across the business so we can keep delivering for our members, partners, employees, and investors."

Netflix is making the cuts a week ahead of its next quarterly earnings report. Peters and Sarandos said the company remains on track to meet its full-year earnings forecast.

When Netflix last reported significant layoffs in June 2022, it had recently reported its first quarterly loss of subscribers in more than a decade.

Write to Joe Flint at Joe.Flint@wsj.com and Jessica Toonkel at jessica.toonkel@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 14, 2026 09:07 ET (13:07 GMT)