Corporate workers at Uber in Australia are among roughly 3,300 roles being cut by the rideshare giant, as it scales back its global workforce by around 10 per cent.
An Uber spokesperson confirmed to Information Age that some Australian staff would be affected by the cuts, but would not say how many.
The company had more than 550 staff in Australia at the end of 2025 and around 34,000 globally in more than 70 countries, according to corporate documents.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told staff in a memo on Wednesday that the firm was “making a number of significant organisational changes” aimed at streamlining its operations.
“We are removing layers, simplifying team structures, refining our global location strategy, and focusing our people and investments against the biggest opportunities ahead of us,” he said.
Uber is reportedly investing billions of dollars in the development of autonomous vehicles, also known as robotaxis.
The company’s growth in recent years had “brought complexity” to the business, Khosrowshahi said, including “more layers, more coordination, more fragmented ownership”.
“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,” he said.
‘Cut down on layers of management’
Khosrowshahi said many Uber staff had told the company that “too much work requires coordination across teams, debates take too long, and decision-making rights are unclear”.
He said the firm’s job cuts “reduced roles primarily focused on coordination”, simplified teams, cut down on layers of management, and reduced the number of employees working seven or more layers away from the CEO.
“The outcome is a simpler org chart geared toward building versus managing,” he said.
Uber had more than 550 corporate staff in Australia at the end of 2025. Image: Uber
Uber had decided “to make one big shift rather than multiple small ones” in order to minimise distractions, Khosrowshahi said.
He did not mention the rise of generative artificial intelligence as a factor in the cuts.
Uber shares rose around 2 per cent on Thursday following news of the company’s layoffs.
Reducing layers of management has been cited as justification for job cuts in recent years from tech companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon.
‘Only about 1% of employees will be remote’
Uber would also tighten its remote working rules, Khosrowshahi told staff.
“We are also asking the vast majority of remote employees to move to an office, and going forward, only about 1% of employees will be remote,” he said.
“We’ll also continue to reinforce compliance with our hybrid work policy, which requires three days a week in the office.”
The company planned to concentrate its teams “in a smaller number of key hubs”, he added, with managers and their teams to be co-located “wherever possible”.
“The benefits of sitting together, collaborating in person, and solving problems as a team are clearer than ever in our post-COVID world,” he said.
More than 150,000 gig economy workers earn money as contractors driving for Uber or delivering for Uber Eats in Australia, according to the company, but they are not part of its corporate headcount.
The Fair Work Commission recently approved a legally enforced minimum wage of $31.30 per hour for gig economy delivery drivers, which came into effect on Monday, 17 August.
