Uber is laying off about 3,300 employees, or roughly 10% of its global workforce, as it removes management layers and consolidates teams in a restructuring. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced the cuts in a Wednesday memo to staff, describing a company that had become more complex as it scaled. “We are removing layers, simplifying team structures, refining our global location strategy and focusing our people and investments against the biggest opportunities ahead of us,” wrote Khosrowshahi.
Reducing layers and ‘mirco-teams’
Uber’s revenue has nearly tripled over the past five years, according to what Khosrowshahi wrote in the memo reviewed by HR Executive. That growth had produced “more layers, more coordination, more fragmented ownership” than the business needs, he said. Uber has cut the number of employees who are seven or more layers removed from the CEO by 20%.
It has also nearly halved the number of managers overseeing “micro-teams” of only one or two people. “The outcome is a simpler org chart geared toward building versus managing,” wrote Khosrowshahi.
Uber is combining its restaurant, retail and direct-delivery operations into unified teams at the global, regional and country levels. “Running these three businesses separately made sense in their early days, but that structure is no longer serving us at scale,” wrote the CEO. The company is also merging its Core Services Engineering and Science teams into one structure, according to Khosrowshahi’s memo.
Shrinking remote workforce
The org is also reducing the number of fully remote employees to about 1% of its workforce and asking many remote workers to relocate closer to an office. “We’ll also continue to reinforce compliance with our hybrid work policy, which requires three days a week in the office,” wrote Khosrowshahi.
The move is Uber’s third disclosed round of job cuts this year. In June, the company cut 23% of its People and Places organization, which includes HR, recruiting and workplace functions, as reported by HR Executive. In July, the company cut about 10% of jobs in Community Operations, its customer-service group, and cited a push to simplify operations and “embrace artificial intelligence,” Bloomberg reported.
Affected employees have already been notified except in countries where local law requires a different process, according to the memo. Khosrowshahi told employees the cuts were about Uber’s structure and priorities, rather than individual performance or contributions.
“We also know organizational changes can be hugely distracting, and our job is to create an environment that allows you to focus and do your best work,” wrote Khosrowshahi. “With these decisions now made, our focus is on the future.”
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