Netflix laid off 300 employees today, bringing the total to 450 since May. The latest layoffs come after Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers during its first quarter. It started making staff cuts in April with a number of staffers laid off at its fan site Tudum, before cutting roles in its U.S. content teams.
In May, a number of those laid off were in the executive ranks including in original content, with a couple of director-level original series execs set to leave including Sebastian Gibbs and Penelope Essoyan in Drama Series, Negin Salmasi in Spectacle and Event TV, as well as Nathan Kitada, Fidan Manashirova and the Family Films team of Naketha Mattocks, Brad Butler, Alison Haskovec and Caroline Mak.
Netflix has a global workforce of around 11,000.
Netflix’s stock has fallen sharply after the streamer reported its global subscriber base decline – its first drop in more than a decade. Wall Street also had expected more from the streaming giant in terms of revenue, with a consensus among analysts calling for $7.93 billion. Netflix reported $7.868 billion in revenue in Q1, up less than 10% from a year ago.
The company is about a month away from its next major crossroads. It will report quarterly results in late July and has already signaled a possible loss of 2 million subscribers. With subscriber momentum slowing, more scrutiny has been applied to the company’s efforts to rein in costs. Despite the job cuts, spending on content is still expected to approach $20 billion this year, with no plans to slash that figure.
This story was first reported in Deadline.
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