Canva says a company-wide restructure will affect 1,271 people, or 22% of its staff, in what co-founder and chief executive Melanie Perkins called “the hardest moment in our thirteen-year history”.
The figure comes from a note from Perkins published in Canva’s newsroom, which she also shared in a LinkedIn post. “This means 1,271 people, or 22% of Canva, will be impacted,” she wrote.
In brief
- Canva says 1,271 people, 22% of the company, are affected by a restructure.
- The number covers role changes, relocations to central hubs and job losses; Canva did not give a split.
- Perkins said growth “has slowed for the first time in a decade”.
What the Canva layoffs and restructure involve
Perkins said the 1,271 figure is not a pure layoff count. “For some people, this will mean changes to their roles or being asked to relocate to centralised hubs,” she wrote. “Sadly, it will also mean saying goodbye” to some colleagues. The note does not say how many people fall into each group, so the number of jobs lost is not public.
She set out the reasons plainly. “This has been our hardest year yet, and as we shared earlier this year, our growth has slowed for the first time in a decade,” she wrote, adding that Canva needs “to refound Canva, getting back to our roots of small, empowered teams”.
The note describes three changes. Product, Growth and Platform teams are being combined into one Product organisation. Canva is cutting the number of subspecialties and management layers. And it is bringing teams together in fewer places, with Sydney becoming the main home for more product teams. From January, most hybrid staff will be expected in the office two to three days a week.
Canva has teams in 37 countries. Perkins said people who are leaving will keep access to Slack and Gmail until the end of the week. A Company All Hands meeting is set for 10 November, with organisation-level all-hands meetings from 11 November.
Support for people leaving
Canva says people leaving will get at least six months’ salary, inclusive of statutory entitlements, wherever they are based. Those who joined in the past year will have the one-year vesting cliff removed. Where Canva currently provides healthcare, it will continue for 12 months, as will Canva Care, its employee assistance programme, which also covers family members.
The severance floor applies regardless of location, Perkins said, and is inclusive of statutory entitlements rather than added on top of them. Leavers will also get career coaching, a year of LinkedIn Premium, a place in an alumni talent directory and can keep their MacBook. A Canva Collective Fund will offer US$10,000 grants to former staff starting businesses, without taking equity; registrations close on 14 December.
Why the Canva layoffs matter
Canva is one of Australia’s best-known tech companies, and a cut affecting more than a fifth of its people is a sharp turn for a business that spent most of the past decade expanding. The note is unusually direct that slowing growth is the trigger, rather than a single product shift. Perkins mentions that “new technology is transforming what people can create”, but she does not present AI as the reason for the cuts, and the changes she lists are about structure, layers and location.
The relocation element matters too. Moving product work towards Sydney and asking hybrid staff into the office more often means some of the 1,271 may keep their jobs but face a move, while others leave. Without a breakdown, the true number of job losses is unclear.
The move follows a string of large workforce cuts across tech and telecoms, including Netflix trimming about 6% of its staff and AT&T and Verizon cutting about 8,000 jobs in a quarter. Canva has been investing heavily in its own products, including Craft, its first in-house image generation model. What to watch next is whether Canva gives a split of the affected roles and how the leaner Product organisation changes its release pace.
Sources
- Canva Newsroom: Canva team update, note from Melanie Perkins
- Melanie Perkins on LinkedIn: An important update on our team
Related stories
- Canva Releases Craft, Its First In-House Image Generation Model
- Netflix Lays Off About 6% of Its Staff, Co-CEOs Tell Employees
- AT&T and Verizon Cut About 8,000 Jobs in a Quarter, Filings Show
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