Uber, massive staff cuts: 3,300 jobs at risk

Uber Technologies will cut about 3,300 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, as part of a restructuring aimed at removing management layers, consolidating teams and reducing costs. The cuts follow a difficult year for Uber shares, which lost nearly 8% on investor concerns that autonomous ride-hailing companies like Waymo could threaten Uber’s dominant market share in North America.

According to its annual report, the company had about 34,000 employees globally at the end of last year. The layoffs would be Uber’s largest since May 2020, when the company cut about 6,700 jobs, or nearly a quarter of its workforce, as demand for transportation services collapsed due to pandemic restrictions.

The words of the Uber CEO

Echoing a broader tech industry trend to remain flexible, C.E.O Dara Khosrowshahi he said the cuts would reduce organizational complexity that had slowed Uber’s decision-making and created coordination-focused roles. Unlike many tech executives, however, he did not blame the cuts on artificial intelligence. He further explained that as part of this reorganization, Uber will merge some teams and concentrate the majority of its staff around its main hubs.

How work changes with cuts

Uber said it has reduced by 20% the number of employees who are seven or more hierarchical levels below the CEO, and has almost halved the number of “micro-teams”, or those made up of just one or two direct collaborators. The company will concentrate global teams in New York and San Francisco, require most remote workers to relocate, and limit fully remote roles to about 1% of staff, while maintaining a three-day in-office policy.