Roughly 150 Netflix Employees Laid Off After Subscriber Losses

Topline

About 150 Netflix employees were laid off Tuesday, mostly in the United States, roughly a month after the streaming service reported a decrease in subscriber numbers for the first time in 10 years.

Key Facts

Big Number

Over 11,000. That’s how many employees Netflix has.

Key Background

Netflix reported a loss of 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter, a stark turnaround from expectations to add 2.7 million. The company said it expected to lose another 2 million subscribers this quarter. After the news broke, Netflix’s stock dropped 35% to roughly $220, and was trading at roughly $189 Tuesday afternoon. The losses were partially blamed on password sharing—Netflix believes 100 million households around the world share passwords, 30 million of which are in the U.S. or Canada. Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings said the streaming service would explore launching a lower-priced, ad-supported tier to attract customers and a program that would allow users to pay for additional profiles they can share, similar to a test program that was launched in Chile, Costa and Peru earlier this year. The ad-supported tier could launch in the fourth quarter of this year, the company told employees in a note, which was reported on by the New York Times last week. Shortly after the news of the losses broke, Netflix laid off 25 employees from its marketing team, including staffers who wrote for the company’s fan website Tudum, according to Variety.

Further Reading

Netflix Loses Subscribers For The First Time In Ten Years, Shares Plunge 35% (Forbes)

Roughly 1 In 10 Adults Use Netflix Password From Another Household—With Baby Boomers The Biggest Culprits—Survey Suggests (Forbes)