Uber Lays Off 10% of Workforce to Create a "Simpler and Faster" Company

Uber is cutting 3,300 jobs, which is about 10% of the company's total global workforce, according to a report by Bloomberg. The move is intended to reduce management layers and reallocate spending to the ride-sharing, delivery, and autonomous taxi divisions.

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced the cuts to employees, stating that Uber's growth in recent years has created "more layers, more need for coordination, more split responsibilities, and in some cases, management structures that made sense when the business was smaller, but no longer serve us well at the current scale."

A company spokesperson explained that the cuts will reduce the number of managers at the company by 20%. Additionally, in an attempt to make Uber "simpler and faster," about half of the teams consisting of only two employees will be cut, and the number of employees who are more than seven organizational layers below the CEO will be reduced, according to Khosrowshahi. He added that the affected employees have already been notified.

At the same time, the company is working to bring employees back to work in offices full-time, allowing only 1% to continue working remotely. According to Khosrowshahi, the changes "will create savings that we intend to reinvest in growth, innovation, and capabilities that will matter most in the coming years."

Accordingly, investment in drivers, couriers, and merchants around the world will be increased. Uber also intends to invest more than $10 billion in the coming years in partnerships in the autonomous taxi sector, with the goal of becoming the leading platform in the field.

Unlike large technology companies that have carried out several rounds of layoffs in recent years to increase investments in AI, Uber has avoided widespread cuts since the coronavirus pandemic. However, in May, the company announced that it would moderate the pace of hiring. After the current layoffs, the company's workforce will stand at about 30,000 employees, the same level it was at in 2021.

"There are many opportunities ahead of us, we have the opportunity to bring Uber to hundreds of millions more people, to invest more in drivers, couriers, and merchants, and to innovate our core business and build an autonomous future," the CEO concluded. — "To do all of this, we must make deliberate decisions about where our people are, about our time, and about our capital."