Uber is cutting 10% of its global staff in a broad restructuring aimed at making the ride-hailing giant leaner and easier to operate, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told employees in an open memo posted Wednesday on the company’s website.
Based on Uber’s workforce size at the end of last year, the layoffs would affect about 3,400 employees worldwide.
The company said the move is designed to reduce management layers, simplify how teams are organized and improve overall efficiency. Khosrowshahi said the savings and sharper focus will help Uber put more resources behind drivers, couriers and merchants, while also accelerating new technology efforts, including autonomous driving.
“To do those things, we need to make deliberate choices about where we put our people, our time, and our capital,” Khosrowshahi wrote in the memo.
Analysts at Wedbush Securities estimated the workforce reductions could generate approximately $1.7 billion in savings for Uber.
Uber also announced a new “location strategy” that effectively mandates in-person work at its major office hubs.
“The benefits of sitting together, collaborating in person, and solving problems as a team are clearer than ever in our post-COVID world,” Khosrowshahi said. “With that in mind, we’re establishing clearer principles for where roles and teams should be based, with the goal of concentrating teams in a smaller number of key hubs.”
Uber is requiring most of its remote employees to relocate to a geographic location where they can report to an office, stating that only about 1% of workers will be permitted to work remotely in the future.
Uber, founded in 2009 as a rideshare company, has since expanded into other businesses, including food and retail delivery.
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Uber shares rose on Wednesday as much as 2.5%.
Alain Sherter
contributed to this report.