Netflix Layoffs Cost Streamer $70M In Severance Charges; Nearly 500 Staffers Axed Recently
deadline.comThe recent pink-slipping of hundreds of employees cost Netflix a bundle, with more likely to come.Today’s second-quarter earnings letter to shareholders revealed the streamer paid out $70 million in severance costs.
Hit by subscriber losses for the first time as well as plunging stock prices, Netflix has laid off about 475 staffers in the past three months.Netflix Q2 Earnings Report: Deadline’s Full CoverageAs is often the case in unstable situations like what the platform run by Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos find itself in of late, the layoffs came in waves.First to go in April were about two dozen editorial staffers and contractors at the streamer’s much-hyped Tudum fan site.
That initial restructuring, as such layoffs commonly are blandly termed, was followed in May by the axing of about 150 positions out of the streamer’s total workforce of 11,000 as a consequence of the slowdown in the company’s revenue growth.Last month saw the biggest purging with another 300 staffers shown the door. “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 a company spokesperson on June 23. “We are so grateful for everything they have done for Netflix and are working hard to support them through this difficult transition.”Netflix To Launch Advertising Tier In “Early Part” Of 2023In the process of “rightsizing our office footprint,” to quote the bloodless corporate jargon Netflix used in today’s earnings letter, the streamer also raked up $80 million in “non-cash impairment of certain real estate leases” this quarter.More layoffs are anticipated for the company with subscriber losses piling up.
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