Netflix cuts 300 more staff in second round of lay offs

Netflix has laid off 300 more employees in a second round of job cuts, after losing subscribers for the first time in more than a decade.

The cuts, which had been expected, represent around 4% of Netflix’s total workforce, with most of the job losses affecting US employees, while staff were also cut from teams in Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.

These new lay offs come after 150 employees lost their jobs last month, sparked by Netflix’s Q1 results revealing that the streamer had lost 200,000 subscribers and prompting a move towards ad-support as it predicted two million more users would depart in the upcoming quarter.

“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,” said Netflix in a statement.

These latest cuts mean that the streamer has lost 450 staff members worldwide in the past five weeks, out of a total workforce of around 11,000.

Earlier this month, Bela Bajaria, head of global TV at the streamer, told delegates at the BANFF World Media Festival that the SVOD expected to ‘slow’ the amount it was investing into shows due to the hit to subscriber numbers.

However she added that there would not be any “radical shifts” to the business. “We’re not merging or having a big transitional phase,” she said. “When I look at a noisy period like this, it’s about getting back to the basics.”