Netflix confirmed Thursday that it is conducting a second round of layoffs as the streaming giant grapples with a slump in paid subscribers and a painful drop in its stock price.
A Netflix spokesperson said the company had “sadly let go of around 300 employees.” Company executives had earlier acknowledged plans to trim expenses due to slowing growth.
Variety, which was first to report on the latest round of layoffs, said most of the job losses were in the US and occurred across multiple business divisions.
Netflix has about 11,000 employees, according to Variety. That would mean the latest round of layoffs affected about 2% of its overall workforce.
The latest layoffs were announced just weeks after Netflix cut about 150 staffers. The company said at the time that those cuts were “primarily driven by business needs rather than individual performance.”
“While we continue to invest significantly in the business, we made these adjustments so that our costs are growing in line with our slower revenue growth,” the Netflix spokesperson said in a statement on Thursday. “We are so grateful for everything they have done for Netflix and are working hard to support them through this difficult transition.”
Netflix shares have been under pressure since the streaming giant reported a paid subscriber loss for the first time in more than a decade. The company said it had lost about 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter and expected to lose another 2 million in the second quarter.
The losses occurred during a period of intense competition in the streaming sector from the likes of Disney+, HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video – as well as decades-high inflation that has led Americans to rethink their extra expenses.
Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann addressed plans to dial down on spending during the company’s earnings call in April.
“We’re pulling back on some of our spend growth across both content and non-content spend,” Neumann said. “We’re trying to be smart about it and prudent in terms of pulling back on some of that spend growth to reflect the realities of the revenue growth of the business.”
Netflix shares were flat in trading Thursday following the layoff announcement. However, shares are down more than 70% so far this year during a major selloff in the tech sector.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
