On Thursday, Netflix announced a second round of layoffs as the streaming service faces a decline in paying customers and its stock price.
Netflix has “sadly let go of approximately 300 employees.” The company’s executives had earlier admitted a plan to trim costs due to slowing growth.
According to Variety, most of the layoffs took place in the US and involved several different business divisions.
Considering that Netflix has about 11,000 employees, the latest layoffs would affect about 2% of its staff.
A few weeks ago, Netflix laid off 150 staffers. At the time, the company said 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. “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 declining since the company lost paid subscribers for the first time in more than a decade in the first quarter and is expected to lose another 2 million in the second quarter.
The losses happened in a time of fierce competition in the streaming industry from companies like Disney+, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime Video, as well as decades-high inflation that made Americans reevaluate their additional expenses.
During the company’s April earnings call, Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann discussed goals to reduce spending.
“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 spending growth to reflect the realities of the revenue growth of the business.”
