After almost acquiring Warner Bros., Netflix has announced that it is laying off 1,000 workers. What happened next?

Netflix has announced plans to lay off around 6% of its workforce, equating to almost 1,000 job losses, as the streaming giant implements wider “organisational changes”.

The job cuts were announced by co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos in a memo to employees on Wednesday. They said that the company’s product, technology, legal and human resources teams would be impacted the most.

‘Decisions like these are never easy, and we don’t take them lightly,’ wrote Peters and Sarandos in the memo, obtained by the Associated Press. They maintained that business was strong, but that Netflix needed to be ‘disciplined about where we prioritise our people and resources’ as it invests in future growth and ‘high-impact areas to improve our service’.

Beyond the memo from its chief executives, Netflix declined to comment further on Wednesday’s cuts.
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Between membership sign-ups and price increases, Netflix’s profits have grown this year. In its second financial quarter, the company earned $3.4 billion and generated revenue of $12.56 billion — up 9% and 13%, respectively, from the same period last year.

However, Netflix’s forecast for the third quarter fell below Wall Street’s expectations. The company is set to report those earnings next week.

Competition in the streaming space is becoming increasingly crowded. While Netflix remains a dominant player, accounting for 19% of the market according to the latest data from streaming guide JustWatch, rivals such as Amazon’s Prime Video and Disney+ are close behind.

HBO Max and Paramount+ are now both part of Skydance following Paramount’s $81 billion buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery last week. The new Hollywood giant plans to unify its streaming products ‘into a single service over time’. Initially, Netflix had agreed to buy Warner’s studio and streaming business late last year, but withdrew from the deal in February.

According to regulatory filings, Netflix had approximately 16,000 full-time employees worldwide at the end of 2025. The layoffs announced on Wednesday mark the biggest round of cuts that the California-based company has implemented in years.