Netflix reportedly plans to cut 850 jobs. Your bill went up in March

About 800 jobs. Maybe 850.

That is how many people Netflix is reported to be about to cut. The claim comes from a report dated 9 October by the newsletter Puck, which cites anonymous sources. It says the streaming giant plans to lay off about 5% of its staff as part of a restructuring. It "could be announced as early as next week."

Netflix has not confirmed it. A company spokesperson declined to comment, according to the outlets that picked up the story.

The reaction online was instant. One reply joked "850 players eliminated". Another asked how 17,000 people even work at Netflix. A third reminded everyone the company was going to buy Warner Bros, and a fourth added that Netflix is also raising its prices.

Is Netflix really laying people off?

Not officially. This is a report, not a company announcement.

Here is what is reported. Puck says the restructuring will hit about 5% of staff. AV Club and Yahoo Finance carried the story on 9 October, and Variety is cited as having reported it too. Which departments are affected is not clear.

The timing matters. Netflix reports its third-quarter earnings on 20 October, after the US market closes. A cut announced next week would land just days before.

Netflix has done small cuts this year already. Several dozen people on its global product team were let go earlier in 2026.

How many people work at Netflix?

Netflix said it had about 16,000 full-time employees at the end of 2025. Some outlets use 17,000, which is an estimate for today. About 68% of the workforce, roughly 10,900 people, sit in the US and Canada.

Five per cent of those two numbers gives you the range in the headline.

So the "850 players" joke uses the higher number.

Netflix is not just a website. It makes films and series, runs studios, builds the app, sells ads and handles customers in dozens of countries. That is how a company that only sends you video needs 16,000 people.

Photo: Coolcaesar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Every Netflix layoff since 2022

This is not the first time. Here are the cuts we could confirm, and the new report.

Sources: NPR, Gulf News, Yahoo Finance, AV Club.

The 2022 cuts took about 450 jobs in two rounds. If the new report is right, this one would be nearly twice as big.

Why would Netflix cut jobs now?

The reports give a few clues, and none of them is a statement from Netflix.

The share price is down about 20% this year, according to AV Club, and fell sharply after the July earnings call. At a recent Bloomberg event, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said "we're not growing as fast as I want us to." He also said the business is "great and growing fine."

Rivals are warning of cuts too. The new Warner Bros and Paramount giant, which we wrote about in our story on the merger, has been warned by its boss of "difficult decisions that affect our workforce."

Is this bigger than the 2022 layoffs?

In share of staff, only a little. In people, it is nearly twice as many.

In 2022 Netflix had about 11,000 staff. The two rounds took about 450 jobs, which is roughly 4% of the company. A 5% cut now would be a bigger slice of a much bigger company. Netflix has grown by about 5,000 people since then.

Photo: Coolcaesar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The reason looks different too. In 2022, the cuts followed a loss of 200,000 subscribers in one quarter. This time, the reports point to slower growth and a share price that has dropped.

Staff will be watching 20 October closely, and so will investors and rival studios. It is the first time investors hear from the company since the share price fell after July's call.

Why are people angry about the price rise?

Because the timing looks bad, even if the dates are months apart. On 26 March, Netflix raised its prices. It was the first rise since January 2025, and the company said the money would go back into content.

Sources: TechCrunch, Storyboard18. Existing members get a month's notice before the new price applies, so it rolled out over the following months.

A family on Standard now pays $24 a year more. Multiply that by millions of accounts, and you see why a layoff report on top feels like a slap.

What happened to the Warner Bros deal?

Netflix agreed to buy Warner Bros' studios and streaming business for about $82.7 billion, not the $100 billion one reply guessed. The offer was all cash.

On 26 February 2026, Warner's board called a rival offer from Paramount Skydance "superior". That offer was worth about $111 billion with debt. Netflix chose not to raise its bid and walked away the same day. Its co-CEOs said matching the price was no longer financially attractive.

Reports at the time said a $2.8 billion break-up fee was owed to Netflix, and that Paramount would cover it.

So in under eight months, Netflix walked away from the Warner Bros deal, raised its prices, saw its shares slide and is now reported to be cutting staff.

In the Netflix hit show Squid Game, 456 players enter the games. The reported cut at Netflix is about 850 people, almost double that.