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Trinity Audioplayer ready...By Natalie Lung, Bloomberg The cuts to the People and Places division, many of which are senior roles, represent less than 1% of Uber’s 34,000 employees around the world, according to a company spokesperson. Its approximately 10 million drivers are mostly classified separately as independent contractors.
HR employees who had previously been approved to work remotely are also being asked to return to the office to comply with a three-day-a-week office mandate that went into effect last June.
Uber’s shares pared their early losses on Wednesday morning following the news, and were down 0.6% to $71.21 at 10:30 a.m. in New York.
The changes come three weeks after Hazelbaker, a longtime executive who oversaw marketing, policy and communications, was promoted to the expanded role of president and chief corporate affairs officer. The new role adds Uber’s safety operations and the People and Places organization to her remit, following the departures of the respective leaders of those functions this year.
“As we’ve grown, parts of the organization have become too complex and fragmented, with overlapping responsibilities, unclear ownership, and teams operating too far from the businesses and partners they support,” Hazelbaker wrote in a memo to affected teams on Wednesday.
Wednesday’s cuts are unrelated to AI, a spokesperson said.
Uber has differed from other tech companies conducting mass layoffs in the name of AI-driven investment and efficiencies, instead cutting in a more targeted way to trim costs. It’s still hiring for more than 800 roles, including for commercializing robotaxis. It said last month that it would slow hiring due to internal use of AI.
“These changes are necessary to maximize the effectiveness of the People team and the enormous potential ahead of us,” Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi said in a separate memo to leaders at the company.
Earlier cuts by Uber in 2023 also targeted the recruiting team, as well as online grocery subsidiary Cornershop.
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