Uber Trims 3,300 Roles and a Fifth of Its Managers

Posted on in Management

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Uber has decided that its org chart needs the same treatment as a congested downtown route: fewer stops and a more direct path. The company is cutting about 3,300 roles, or roughly 10% of its staff worldwide, in a restructuring built around one goal: removing the management layers that piled up during years of rapid growth.

Chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi explained the move in an email to employees. In his words, growth had brought "more layers, more co-ordination, more fragmented ownership," and some of the company's structures no longer fit its current scale. The stated aim is to make Uber "simpler and faster."

Fewer bosses, fewer tiny teams

The number of managers will fall by 20%. Some of them will not leave but will move into individual contributor roles, swapping the meeting calendar for hands-on work. Uber did not say what share of managers will actually be laid off, and the cuts also reach people who never managed anyone.

  • The number of "micro-teams" with one or two members will be cut by about half.
  • The company is reducing the number of employees who sit more than seven layers below the CEO.
  • Core engineering, science and delivery groups are being streamlined, and three operations teams for restaurants, retail and white-label delivery will be merged into one.
  • Going forward, only about 1% of employees will be allowed to work remotely.

Savings with a destination

Uber says the money freed up will be reinvested in growth and innovation, including more support for drivers, couriers and merchants and work on its autonomous future. The company has pledged more than $10 billion to robotaxi partnerships in the coming years. Investors seemed to approve: the shares erased earlier losses and rose as much as 1.7% in premarket trading. After the cuts, total headcount will drop below 30,000, roughly where it stood in 2021. Khosrowshahi did not mention artificial intelligence in his announcement, which, in the current climate, almost counts as a management innovation in itself.