Netflix Lays Off About 1,000 Employees in Its Biggest Cuts Since 2022; Film VP Doug Belgrad Exits
Netflix has laid off around 1,000 employees, or about 7 percent of its workforce, in its largest round of cuts since 2022, The Hollywood Reporter (THR) reported in its October 14 morning briefing. The layoffs, which began Tuesday (October 13), impact the company's Los Angeles and Los Angeles-adjacent offices most heavily, and the film division — led by chairman Dan Lin — is among the hardest hit. Film VP Doug Belgrad is among those exiting. THR said the cuts come as Netflix seeks to control costs amid a broader industry contraction.
According to an internal memo seen by Reuters, co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos told employees in an email on Wednesday that the bulk of the cuts would fall on the product, tech, legal and human-resources teams. "Our mission — to entertain the world — is ambitious, and delivering on it requires us to be disciplined about where we prioritize our people and resources," they wrote, adding that the business is strong and growing and that the company remains on track to deliver its full-year forecast while continuing to invest aggressively in high-impact areas. Reuters and The Wall Street Journal put the reduction at about 6 percent of the workforce. Netflix had about 16,000 employees at the end of last year; its shares, down around 25 percent so far this year, rose 0.7 percent on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
Belgrad served as a right-hand man to film chief Dan Lin. According to THR and TheWrap, he joined Netflix in 2024 and was Lin's first big hire after Lin succeeded Scott Stuber at the head of the film division. Before Netflix, Belgrad spent many years at Sony Pictures, where he served as president of Columbia Pictures and was later elevated to president of the Sony Motion Picture Group. At Netflix, he helped shepherd films including "The Rip," "War Machine," "People We Meet on Vacation" and "Happy Gilmore 2," as well as the critical success "Train Dreams," and was instrumental in hashing out Netflix's Pay-1 deal with Sony. Netflix declined to comment on Belgrad's exit.
Ross Benes, a senior analyst at eMarketer, told Reuters the company "haven't been able to find like another line of major revenue," adding that Netflix remains reliant on a subscription business that could be approaching a ceiling and will eventually need another revenue stream to diversify. Netflix's deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming assets collapsed earlier, and Paramount Skydance's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros was completed earlier this month. Netflix's last major round of layoffs came in 2022, when it eliminated about 450 roles after reporting its first quarterly subscriber decline in more than a decade.
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, October 14, 2026; Reuters, October 14, 2026; TheWrap, October 14, 2026.
Source: 《好莱坞报道》、路透社
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
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