Canva announces layoffs after ‘hardest year’, over 1,200 employees to face job cuts or relocation | Trending

Design platform Canva is cutting jobs and relocating employees in a major restructuring move. Canva co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins shared the “profoundly difficult news” in an email to staff on November 4.

A general view of the Canva headquarters after the Australian graphic design platform said it would slash 1,271 jobs in Melbourne, Australia, (via REUTERS)“We have made the incredibly hard decision to make significant changes to how we’re organised, where some of our teams are based, and the roles and skills we need for the future,” Perkins said.

This is the company's first major restructuring in its 13-year history. Canva does not have an office in India.

The reorganisation and layoffs come at a time when Canva, one of Australia’s most valuable technology startups, is trying to stay relevant in the age of artificial intelligence. In Tuesday’s memo, CEO Melanie Perkins said that Canva’s growth had slowed for the first time in a decade.

More than 1,200 employees, representing 22% of the workforce, will be impacted by the restructuring.

While some employees will be laid off, others will be asked to relocate to central hubs.

Perkins said that “1,271 people, or 22% of Canva, will be impacted. For some people, this will mean changes to their roles or being asked to relocate to centralised hubs. Sadly, it will also mean saying goodbye to teammates and friends who have helped build Canva into what it is today.”

The CEO’s email to staff was later published on the Canva website.

Perkins called the layoffs unavoidable, saying she had reached the conclusion that small changes were not enough to keep the organisation afloat.

She called the restructuring the “hardest moment in our thirteen-year history”, noting that Canva needed to get back to its roots as a smaller company with “empowered teams” that have the freedom to make decisions and take ownership of their work.

In her email to staff, the CEO of Canva noted how growth had slowed at the Australian design startup for the first time in 10 years. In August, the company had lowered its revenue growth forecast from 30% to 20%.

“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.

Simplifying the structure: Canva is merging its Product, Growth and Platform teams. The company is bringing these functions together under a single Product Org to reduce handovers, improve coordination and give teams greater autonomy and ownership.

“We want to get back to spending more time building, and less time navigating how work gets done,” Perkins said.

Reducing specialised roles and management layers: The company plans to merge narrower specialisations into broader roles, consolidate overlapping responsibilities and simplify its organisational structure. The aim is to give teams greater responsibility for projects from start to finish.

“Over time, we've divided work across more and more subspecialties and teams. While this has helped us build valuable expertise, it's also fragmented ownership and made it harder to see the full picture, with different teams responsible for many pieces of the same work,” the email to staff explained.

Relocating some employees: Sydney will become the primary base for more product teams and certain other roles. Canva will also ask most hybrid employees to work from the office for around two to three days a week from January, depending on their location and role. Relocation support will be provided to employees asked to move.

“Working across countries has brought enormous benefits and talent, but it’s also made it harder to bring the right people together to solve complex problems. We’ll continue investing in our global team, particularly where being close to our community, customers and markets matters most,” the company explained.

Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience -- from viral videos to human interest copies that spark a conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and finding newsworthy angles in viral content. She writes about a wide range of topics, from business leaders and social issues to everyday people and internet trends. She enjoys speaking to content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs and turning their experiences and stories into engaging, relatable articles.Read More