Roughly 20pc of Uber’s management layer is being cut, alongside nearly half of its micro teams.
Uber is cutting roughly 3,300 jobs globally in a bid to reduce management layers and focus investments into future opportunities.
The layoffs, which amount to around 10pc of the company’s total workforce, is designed to make Uber “simpler and faster” said CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, mirroring other Big Tech companies that have collectively laid off more than 120,000 jobs this year alone.
“A leaner organisation will mean clearer ownership, faster decisions and more time spent building rather than coordinating,” Khosrowshahi told employees in a lengthy email.
“It will also generate savings that we intend to reinvest in growth, innovation and the capabilities that will matter most over the coming years,” he said.
“Over the last five-plus years, Uber has grown by orders of magnitude… but that growth has also brought complexity: more layers, more coordination, more fragmented ownership”.
Khosrowshahi did not mention AI as a reason for the layoffs, but used similar verbiage as others in Big Tech who say smaller teams armed with AI will help boost productivity.
Uber has not published how many people it employs in Ireland. However, speaking at an Oireachtas joint committee on transport earlier this year, Uber’s head of Ireland Kieran Harte said that the company employs more than 400 in its Limerick office. SiliconRepublic.com has reached out to Uber for further information on the effect of the layoffs in Ireland.
The move comes after the company posted a quarterly revenue growth of 12pc year-on-year to $14.2bn. Its shares, which have fallen nearly 8pc over the last year, made a marginal gain of around 2pc in pre-market trading today (2 September) following the announcement.
According to the email, roughly 20pc of Uber’s management layer is being cut, alongside nearly half of its micro teams. The ride-hailing giant also said that it will concentrate teams in a smaller number of key hubs; with New York and San Francisco being its largest, regional teams in designated regional hubs, local teams in country hubs, and tech teams in tech hubs.
The company is also asking a vast majority of its remote employees to move to office. Only roughly 1pc of its employees will be remote going forward, Khosrowshahi said in the email. Hybrid work policies in the company will continue, he added, which requires three days a week in the office.
Research suggests that organisational flexibility is key to employee well-being. Meanwhile, The Conversation recently reported that AI-related organisational changes have had a negative reception among employees. It’s analysis found that employee sentiment plays a stronger role in unlocking the benefits of AI over managerial optimism.
The layoffs at Uber come the company promised to commit more than $10bn to advance its robotaxi plans. Last month, it launched its first robotaxi service in Europe in partnership with autonomous vehicle builder Pony AI and Croatian mobility company Verne.
It already operates robotaxis in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Riyadh, alongside a number of US cities, with plans to further expand its AV services to London, Madrid, Munich, Hong Kong and a number of US cities.
In July, it bought food delivery platform Delivery Hero at an equity value of $14.8bn, expanding its market reach to nearly 100 countries.
Earlier this week, PayPal announced it is laying off 164 of its Ireland-based workers to “simplify” operations for long-term growth, while Etsy cut 12pc of its workforce in aid of “flatter, faster teams”.
Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.
Suhasini Srinivasaragavan is a sci-tech reporter for Silicon Republic
