Uber is cutting thousands of jobs even as its business is growing, according to Uber’s latest employee memo and its second-quarter earnings report, making this restructuring much more than a routine response to weak demand.
The Uber layoffs will eliminate roughly 3,300 positions, or about 10% of staff, according to Reuters. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told employees that the company wants to remove management layers, simplify teams, and redirect resources toward what leadership sees as its biggest opportunities. Uber’s announcement marks its largest round of job cuts since the COVID era.
According to Uber’s internal message published by the company, affected employees have already been notified except in countries where local labor procedures require a different process. The company said it reduced roles primarily focused on coordination, cut the number of employees sitting seven or more reporting layers below the CEO by 20%, and reduced the number of small teams with only one or two reports by nearly 50%.
Khosrowshahi framed the problem as one created partly by Uber’s own expansion.
“We’ve built new products, expanded into new businesses, reached more consumers and supported more earners, and become a much larger and stronger company. But that growth has also brought complexity: more layers, more coordination, more fragmented ownership, and in some cases structures that made sense when businesses were smaller but no longer serve us well at our current scale,” Khosrowshahi wrote, according to Uber’s published employee memo.
That restructuring will change more than the company’s headcount. Per Uber’s announcement, the company is combining its separate Delivery Operations teams for restaurants, retail and direct delivery, while also combining Core Services engineering and science teams. Uber also plans to concentrate more workers in designated office hubs, including San Francisco and New York for global teams, and says only about 1% of employees will remain fully remote. Its existing three-day-per-week office requirement will remain in place.
There is one notable wrinkle in the reported numbers. While Reuters and other outlets reported approximately 3,300 cuts as roughly 10% of Uber’s workforce, Uber’s June 30 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission listed approximately 36,600 global employees at the end of the second quarter. Uber’s own September memo describes the reduction only as “about 10%,” meaning the percentage and reported job total appear to be approximate and may reflect a different internal headcount or timing.
What makes the Uber layoffs especially notable is that they are happening while the company is producing strong financial results. According to Uber’s second quarter results, gross bookings reached $58 billion, up 24% from a year earlier on a reported basis, while revenue climbed 12% to $14.2 billion. Uber reported $1.9 billion in operating income, and trailing twelve-month free cash flow exceeded $10 billion for the first time in company history.
That suggests the cuts are less about survival and more about deciding where Uber wants its money and employees concentrated next. In its second-quarter prepared remarks, Uber said it expects to commit more than $10 billion over the coming years through investments, infrastructure and vehicle commitments tied to autonomous vehicles. The company also said autonomous vehicles were already operating through Uber in seven cities and could reach as many as 15 cities by the end of 2026, while partners had committed approximately 120,000 vehicles to its network over the coming years.
That robotaxi push matters because autonomous transportation could eventually change the economics of Uber’s core ride business. Uber’s latest SEC filing specifically identifies Waymo, Tesla, and Amazon-owned Zoox among companies developing autonomous vehicle technology and warns that competitors could hurt Uber if they scale autonomous rides faster or offer cheaper transportation. According to Reuters, Uber is trying to position itself as the marketplace where multiple autonomous vehicle operators can find riders instead of allowing those companies to bypass Uber entirely.
Artificial intelligence is another piece of the workforce story, even though Uber has not blamed this September reduction directly on AI. According to Reuters, Khosrowshahi did not characterize the new 3,300 job cuts as AI-driven. However, Uber’s August prepared remarks to investors said the company was already moderating hiring compared with its original 2026 plans partly because of “AI-related productivity gains” and broader organizational efficiency efforts. Uber also said it would continue looking for ways to improve efficiency while redirecting resources toward investments with stronger long-term returns.
The distinction is important because Uber had already made more targeted cuts before this latest announcement. According to Bloomberg reporting published in June, Uber cut 23% of its People and Places division, which includes human resources, recruiting, workplace facilities and culture, though those reductions represented less than 1% of the company overall. Then in July, Bloomberg reporting on Uber’s customer service operation said the company cut roughly 10% of jobs in that organization as it moved to simplify operations and “embrace artificial intelligence.”
Uber has gone through major workforce reductions before. According to Reuters reporting from May 2020, the company eliminated about 6,700 jobs during the early months of the pandemic, amounting to roughly 23% of its workforce as ride demand collapsed. Later, Reuters reporting from 2023 showed Uber cutting 200 recruiting positions after eliminating another 150 jobs at Uber Freight earlier that year.
That history, combined with the June, July and September 2026 reductions, is why the possibility of additional Uber layoffs cannot be dismissed. No additional companywide round has been announced, and Khosrowshahi actually told employees that leadership preferred making one large organizational shift instead of a series of smaller changes, according to Uber’s September memo. Still, the company’s own investor remarks show that hiring moderation, AI productivity, organizational efficiency and resource reallocation remain active priorities.
That does not prove another round is coming. It does mean workers may continue watching individual departments closely as newly combined teams identify overlapping responsibilities and Uber pours more capital into automation, artificial intelligence and autonomous transportation. The larger message behind these Uber layoffs is that strong profits and growing revenue no longer guarantee a growing corporate workforce when management believes technology and a flatter organization can accomplish more with fewer layers.
