Is Netflix About to Cut 800 Jobs? Inside the Layoffs Report Landing Days Before Earnings

Netflix is reportedly preparing to cut roughly 5% of its workforce — somewhere around 800 positions — in a move that, if confirmed, would be the streaming giant's biggest round of job cuts since 2022. The report comes from Puck News, which cited people familiar with the plans, and has since been picked up and relayed by outlets including Reuters-sourced coverage, The Motley Fool, and TheNextWeb. Netflix itself has declined to comment, so for now this sits firmly in rumor territory — but it's a rumor with unusually specific numbers and unusually pointed timing.

What's Reportedly on the Table

According to the reporting, the cuts would affect close to 800 of Netflix's roughly 16,000-to-17,000 full-time employees, depending on which headcount figure an outlet uses. Coverage is notably vague on specifics beyond that: which teams, which offices, and which regions would be hit hasn't been reported anywhere yet, and it's worth stressing that none of this has been confirmed by the company. Puck's sourcing — "people familiar with the plans" — is the kind of framing that often precedes an official announcement, but it is not one.

The Timing Is the Real Story

What makes this worth watching isn't just the headline number — it's when it landed. The report surfaced on October 9, less than two weeks before Netflix reports its third-quarter results on October 20. It also follows a rough stretch for the stock: Netflix shares reportedly fell around 9% a few months earlier after the company issued a softer-than-expected quarterly outlook. Reports connecting the two aren't claiming the cuts are definitively tied to that guidance, but the proximity has fueled speculation that this is less a "right-sizing" exercise and more a response to pressure on margins and growth.

It's also worth noting this wouldn't be unprecedented. Netflix cut around 150 jobs in May 2022 and roughly 300 more the following month, as subscriber growth stalled following its pandemic-era boom. If this round goes ahead, it would be considerably larger than either of those — a 5% workforce reduction is a meaningfully different scale of move than the trims Netflix made three years ago.

Why Netflix Might Be Feeling the Squeeze

Even unconfirmed, the rumor fits a narrative Netflix executives have themselves been pushing: that the company's real competition isn't Disney+ or Max anymore, it's YouTube. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos has publicly argued that YouTube functions as television now — competing for the same talent, ad dollars, and subscription spend — and Nielsen data from recent years has shown YouTube pulling a noticeably larger share of US streaming viewership than Netflix. If Netflix executives genuinely see YouTube, not legacy studios, as the threat worth restructuring around, workforce cuts aimed at reallocating spend toward content, advertising, or AI tooling wouldn't be surprising — though again, this is reading tea leaves rather than citing a confirmed rationale.

A Regional Angle: The Gulf Streaming Scrap

There's a UAE-relevant wrinkle here too. Netflix has never dominated the Middle East streaming market the way it does in the US and Europe. Industry forecasts from Digital TV Research have previously projected that MENA rivals — particularly MBC's Shahid VIP and the pay-TV-turned-streamer OSN+ — could overtake Netflix in regional subscriber counts by the end of the decade, with Shahid already reporting a larger paid base than Netflix in some recent measurements. Some regional trade coverage has even suggested OSN+ already leads dedicated MENA streaming platforms as of early 2026, though that claim hasn't been independently corroborated and should be treated cautiously. Either way, a global cost-cutting push at Netflix — if it materializes — would land in a region where it's already fighting from behind against well-funded Arabic-language competitors investing heavily in local content, which Netflix has tried to counter with original Arabic productions of its own in recent years.

What Happens Next

The honest answer is: we don't know yet, and neither does anyone reporting on this outside of Netflix's own walls. The company's October 20 earnings call is the obvious moment where this either gets confirmed, denied, or simply ignored — companies aren't obligated to address every leak, and Netflix has stayed quiet on plenty of past reports that later proved accurate or inaccurate. If the cuts are real, expect an announcement either alongside or shortly after that call. If they aren't, this joins a long list of "reportedly planned" layoffs that never actually land in the form first described.

Readers should treat the 800-job figure, and really every detail here, as sourced-but-unconfirmed until Netflix says otherwise. We'll be watching October 20 as closely as anyone.