Netflix lays off 150 staff amid subscriber dip
Following a brutal set of results last month, Netflix has laid off around 150 staff, accounting for around two per cent of its US workforce.
The streaming giant said these losses were a result of the company’s dwindling revenue as it posted its first ever loss of subscribers.
The Los Angeles Times reported that recruiting, communications and the content department were all affected by these job cuts.
The US firm said subscribers were down 200,000 and predicted a further two million subscriber losses.
The disappointing first quarter results sent Netflix’s stock plummeting, wiping $40bn off its market value.
The company has been met with intense competition Disney+ and Amazon’s Prime Video, which are pumping millions into developing new shots.
Meanwhile, Netflix is set to cut back on its content, and revealed earlier this month that it would be cancelling the development of Meghan Markle’s project Pearl.
It’s not just Netflix or streaming giants that are feeling the sting.
As reported by the Financial Times, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta have collectively seen $2.1tn wiped off their market capitalisations in recent months, sparking job cuts.
For Meta, this has translated into cutting back on its aggressive hiring spree, with the company’s chief financial officer David Wehner stating “we need to take another look at our priorities and make some tough decisions”.
Despite Facebook’s parent company recruiting more employees in the first quarter of this year than in the whole of 2021, the overarching theme for the company was that sacrifices would need to be made as the firm grows into the metaverse.
“This will affect almost every team in the company”, Wehner wrote in the internal memo seen by the FT.
Meanwhile, Twitter execs recently said the company would be “pulling back on non-labour costs to ensure we are being responsible and efficient”; this comes despite Elon Musk’s grand ambitions following his supposed $44bn takeover.
Uber chief Dara Khosrowshahi also heralded a change of tack this month when he sent an internal email to staff entitled “the next (best) chapter”, signalling a new era of cost cutting.
Discussing the “seismic shift” that has occurred in the ride-hailing space, Khosrowshahi emphasised the centrality of shareholders in the company’s ongoing journey.
He suggested that cost-cutting may be on the company’s horizon, and wrote: “We will treat hiring as a privilege and be deliberate about when and where we add headcount”.