Uber has laid off another set of employees in its third final phase of restructuring to enable it prepare for the future. The first layoff of 400 employees which was in July this year affected the marketing function. The second, in September, affected 435 employees in the Product and Engineering teams.
This time, the restructuring move affected around 350 employees in the ATG, Eats, Global Rides and Platform (Rides Ops, CommOps, Safety & Insurance, U4B, and Product Ops), Performance Marketing, and Recruiting teams, according to an email from Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi to the staff.
Here is the full email text from Dara:
Team Uber,
As you know, over the past few months, our leaders have looked carefully at their teams to ensure our organizations are structured for success for the next few years. This has resulted in difficult but necessary changes to ensure we have the right people in the right roles in the right locations, and that we’re always holding ourselves accountable to top performance.
Today is the last wave of a process we began months ago with our Marketing team, and more recently, with our Product and Engineering teams. This time, ATG, Eats, Global Rides and Platform (Rides Ops, CommOps, Safety & Insurance, U4B, and Product Ops), Performance Marketing, and Recruiting have made changes. As part of this exercise, some of our employees are being asked to relocate, and around 350 will be leaving the company.
Days like today are tough for us all, and the ELT and I will do everything we can to make certain that we won’t need or have another day like this ahead of us. We all have to play a part by establishing a new normal in how we work: identifying and eliminating duplicate work, upholding high standards for performance, giving direct feedback and taking action when expectations aren’t being met, and eliminating the bureaucracy that tends to creep as companies grow.
We have proven ourselves to be not only one of the most ambitious and innovative companies in the world, but also one of the most resilient. We’ve always pushed through tough times and come out the other side a better and stronger company—that will continue to be true tomorrow, and every day after.
As always, we’ll be at the All Hands tomorrow and will dedicate most of the time to answer your questions. Add yours to the slido here.
Eyes forward—back to building.
Dara
This brings the total layoffs to around 1,185 employees. As at March 31, 2019, Uber’s public global headcount was 24,494. According to Techcrunch, more than 70% of those affected in this round of layoffs are based in the U.S. and Canada, and the rest are relatively evenly distributed across APAC, Latin America and EMEA.
Uber has been making losses and this, in part, formed the restructuring move. It reported more than $5billion loss in Q2 2019 report.
Despite the losses, the ride sharing giant continues to explore and introduce new businesses across the globe.
just last week, it launched its UberBOAT business in Lagos, Nigeria and is thinking of launching its UberBUS business pretty soon also in Nigeria. It also recently announced that it is in talks to acquire majority ownership of Cornershop, a leading online grocery provider in Chile, Mexico, and more recently in Peru and Toronto.
