Read Uber CEO's Memo as 3,300 Workers Lose Their Jobs Despite Business 'Performing So Well'

For about 3,300 Uber employees, Wednesday brought a painful message: their jobs were being eliminated. Uber is cutting roughly 10% of its global workforce in its biggest round of layoffs since the Covid-19 pandemic. Chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi announced the decision in a companywide memo on 2 September.

The announcement came with an unusual explanation. Khosrowshahi acknowledged that Uber's business is performing strongly. He said the company's revenue has nearly tripled over more than five years as it expanded its products, businesses, and global reach. So why cut thousands of jobs? According to Khosrowshahi, Uber has become too complicated.

Uber Says Rapid Growth Created Too Many Layers

Uber had about 34,000 employees at the end of last year. Following the latest cuts, its workforce will fall to just under 30,000, roughly returning it to its 2021 level. Khosrowshahi said Uber's rapid expansion created more layers of management, fragmented responsibilities, and greater coordination between teams. The company now wants a flatter structure.

The number of managers will fall by 20%. Some managers will move into individual contributor roles rather than leave the company. The restructuring will also affect non-managerial employees. Uber says it has reduced by 20% the number of employees who sit seven or more reporting layers below the CEO. It is also cutting the number of micro-teams, defined in the memo as teams with only one or two direct reports, by nearly half.

Teams Are Being Merged to Speed Up Decisions

The changes extend beyond management. Uber is combining its delivery operations covering restaurants, retail, and its direct delivery service. The company says bringing the operations together will reduce duplication and create clearer accountability.

Its technology organisation is also being reshaped. Core Services Engineering and Science will be combined, following a structure already used for Mobility and Delivery. Khosrowshahi said employees had reported spending too much time coordinating and aligning rather than building products, shipping services, and serving customers. The restructuring is intended to address that problem.

Uber Is Sharply Reducing Remote Work

The changes also affect where employees work. Uber plans to concentrate global teams in major hubs such as New York and San Francisco. Regional teams will be based in designated regional hubs, while technology employees will be concentrated in technology hubs. The vast majority of remote employees will be asked to move to an office.

Going forward, only about 1% of Uber employees are expected to work fully remotely. The company's existing hybrid policy, which requires three days a week in the office, will also be reinforced.

Robotaxis Are Central to Uber's Future Plans

The restructuring comes as Uber prepares for a major shift in transportation. Uber has committed more than $10 billion to robotaxi partnerships over the coming years. It has also invested in companies including Avride, Lucid, Nuro, and Rivian as it develops relationships around autonomous vehicles.

The company faces increasing competition in autonomous ride-hailing, particularly from Waymo. Khosrowshahi said the savings generated by the restructuring would be reinvested in growth, innovation and capabilities that will matter to Uber in the coming years.

This Is Different From Uber's 2020 Layoffs

The scale of Wednesday's announcement recalls Uber's pandemic-era cuts. In May 2020, Uber eliminated about 6,700 jobs as lockdowns severely damaged demand for rides. The latest restructuring comes under very different circumstances.

Uber says it now has strong momentum and significant financial capacity. Khosrowshahi also did not cite artificial intelligence as the reason for the layoffs in his memo, despite AI becoming a major factor in restructuring across the technology industry. Instead, his explanation focused on Uber's organisational structure.

The company has grown rapidly. Its leadership now believes the structure created during that expansion has become too cumbersome. For the 3,300 employees affected, the distinction between a struggling business and a strategic restructuring may offer little comfort.

For Uber, the objective is straightforward: create a smaller organisation with fewer management layers, clearer ownership, and more resources available for growth and autonomous transport. The company is betting that becoming leaner now will help it move faster when the next phase of transportation arrives.