NEWS: Netflix Animation Just Laid Off 30 Employees

Netflix has been in the news quite a bit lately.

In 2022, Netflix announced that they lost a significant amount of subscribers and announced plans for an ad-supported subscription, and they also laid off 450 employees during the summer. Now more employees are getting laid off, and this time it’s from one particular studio.

Deadline reported that Netflix Animation has laid off 30 employees, which is a “result of Netflix consolidating its animation film production team under one central leader.” That leader is Traci Balthazor, Vice President of Animated Film Production, who also works closely with Karen Toliver, Vice President of Animated Film Content.

©Netflix

Netflix’s list of animated features and shorts has grown over the years, with seven Academy Award nominations earned since 2020, including winning the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 2021 for If Anything Happens, I Love You. Other titles you may have seen include The Mitchells vs. The Machines, Vivo, Wish Dragon, and plenty more.

Netflix acquired Animal Logic, an Australian animation studio, in July 2022, and Netflix has said that this “will help us accelerate the development of our animation production capabilities and reinforces our commitment to build a world-class animation studio.”

Netflix recently announced that they lost almost one million subscribers during the company’s second quarter of 2022, which was actually a lower estimate than initially predicted.

Netflix plans to introduce an ad-supported subscription option in early 2023, which will allow subscribers to pay a bit less than a non-ad-supported plan. Disney+ will also be launching an ad-supported plan on December 8th, 2022.