Uber Cuts 10% of Corporate Staff, Targeting Management Bloat

Uber is slashing roughly 3,300 corporate positions — about 10% of its white-collar workforce — in a restructuring aimed squarely at management layers and coordination roles. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced the cuts in a company-wide memo, framing the move not as a response to financial weakness but as a deliberate pruning of organizational complexity that accumulated during five years of rapid expansion, during which Uber's top-line revenue nearly tripled.

The cuts zeroed in on roles Khosrowshahi described as primarily focused on coordination, as well as so-called 'micro-teams' — internal units with just one or two direct reports. Uber eliminated roughly half of those micro-team structures, and broadened the scope of remaining managers to reduce the total number of management layers. Several business units were also consolidated, including teams overseeing Uber's delivery operations.

The move fits a clear pattern across the tech industry: companies from Meta to Coinbase have been aggressively culling middle-management ranks, often citing AI-driven productivity gains as justification. Uber's announcement notably did not mention AI as a rationale for this round — though the company did lay off 10% of its customer service team in July, explicitly citing increased AI usage at that time. The corporate restructuring appears framed more around operational simplicity than automation.

Alongside the layoffs, Uber is tightening its return-to-office policy, requiring nearly all corporate employees to be in-office at least three days per week. Fewer than 1% of the corporate workforce will be permitted to remain fully remote. Khosrowshahi characterized the sweeping changes as a deliberate single large move rather than a drawn-out series of smaller disruptions, and said savings generated would be reinvested into growth, innovation, and autonomous vehicle capabilities.