Uber to cut about 10% of global workforce, nearly 3,400 jobs likely to hit

Uber Technologies is reducing its global workforce by about 10 per cent as part of an organisational overhaul aimed at consolidating operations. The cut translates to roughly 3,400 jobs based on the company's latest reported headcount.

In a memo shared with staff, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the company was removing layers, simplifying team structures, and refining its global location strategy.

"As a result, we will be reducing the size of our team by about 10 per cent. Everyone whose role has been affected has already been notified, except in countries where we will follow the required local process," he wrote.

According to Uber's annual report for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, the company and its subsidiaries had approximately 34,000 employees globally, with operations spanning more than 70 countries and over 15,000 cities. Based on this figure, a 10 per cent reduction would affect approximately 3,400 employees.

"Globally, we are making organisational changes to remove layers so we can move faster. As part of these changes, we will be saying goodbye to some valued team members in India, whom we will support through this transition. Our commitment to India as a key market and our ambition to innovate locally for riders and drivers remain unchanged – in fact, we are expanding India's strategic footprint by strengthening our regional operations here to drive our mobility business across Asia-Pacific," an Uber India spokesperson told PTI.

Explaining the rationale behind the job cuts, Khosrowshahi said Uber's revenue has nearly tripled over the past five years as the company expanded into new businesses and markets, but that this growth had also brought "complexity" with more layers, more coordination, more fragmented ownership and organisational structures that no longer served the company at its current scale.

"We have the chance to bring Uber to hundreds of millions more people; to invest even more in drivers, couriers and merchants; and to innovate across our core businesses and build the autonomous future. To do those things, we need to make deliberate choices about where we put our people, our time, and our capital.

"The changes we're making today are designed to do two things: make Uber simpler and faster and create more capacity to invest in our future. A leaner organisation will mean clearer ownership, faster decisions, and more time spent building rather than coordinating," Khosrowshahi said, adding that the restructuring will also generate savings that the company intends to reinvest in growth and innovation.

Uber has cut roles focused primarily on coordination and reduced management layers by broadening managers' scope of responsibility, particularly in cases of "micro-teams" with only one or two direct reports. The company has reduced the number of employees sitting seven or more layers below the CEO by 20 per cent, and cut the number of micro-teams by nearly 50 per cent.

Furthermore, Uber is merging its three separate Delivery Operations teams — spanning Restaurants, Retail and Direct — into single-threaded teams at the global, regional and country levels. In its technology division, the company is combining its Core Services Engineering and Science teams.

"Bringing the P&Ls together under single owners will reduce overlap, clarify accountability, and allow GMs to allocate capital more efficiently and effectively based on their strategic imperatives."

Uber is also consolidating roles into a smaller number of "hub" cities, with global teams to be based out of New York and San Francisco and regional, country and technology teams concentrated in designated regional and tech hubs.

The company said it is asking the vast majority of its remote employees to move to an office, adding that going forward, only about 1 per cent of its employees would remain fully remote. Uber said it would continue with its existing hybrid work policy, which requires employees to work from the office three days a week.

Khosrowshahi acknowledged the changes would be difficult. "This wasn't a decision we made lightly, because it will have a real impact on our teammates and friends who have worked hard for Uber," he wrote, adding that the restructuring reflected how Uber is organised and what it is prioritising and was not a mark of individual employees' contributions.

Earlier this year, during his visit to India, Khosrowshahi met Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and shared that the number of earners on Uber's platform in India has quadrupled since 2022. He also met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and shared Uber’s plans to expand its Centre of Excellence in Visakhapatnam.