- Uber’s CEO told employees during an all-hands meeting on Tuesday that it was close to finalizing layoffs, saying that plans would be announced within two weeks.
- Some employees think layoffs could hit next week, with one source telling Business Insider that the company could trim 4,000, including attrition.
- The company has already slashed jobs at its Middle East unit and shuttered Uber Eats operations in a handful of countries.
- Uber reports earnings on Thursday, and investors expect to hear more about the impact of COVID-19 on its operations at that time.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
At a global all-hands meeting with employees on Tuesday, two days before Uber reports earnings, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told nervous employees that plans for layoffs would be finalized within two weeks, a source told Business Insider.
Some employees believe they’ll hear about layoffs by next week, one former Uber employee told Business Insider.
Khosrowshahi’s announcement to staff was earlier reported by The Information.
Uber employed 26,900 global employees as of December 31, with 10,700 in the US and 16,200 in other countries, it said in public filings.
However, since the COVID-19 crisis hit, the company has frozen hiring, allowed attrition, and trimmed head count. For instance, layoffs were announced on Monday for its Middle East and Africa subsidiary, Careem. It cut 536 jobs this week, or 31% of its Dubai, United Arab Emirates, workforce, Reuters reported.
On Monday, the company also announced it was shuttering Uber Eats operations in the Czech Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay, and Ukraine by June 4. It said it was also transferring Uber Eats operations in the United Arab Emirates to Careem.
Uber this week also rescinded offers to new grads, according to several people who are now looking for jobs on LinkedIn.
Uber is considering a plan to layoff as much as 20% of the company, The Information reported. One person familiar with the company’s plans said they believed the job cuts would affect 4,000 people and that the number would include attrition.
Uber declined to comment on the pending layoffs.
Last week, Business Insider reported that Khosrowshahi told employees that as a public company, Uber couldn’t inform employees about any plans for its workforce until it was ready to announce them publicly.
It seems likely that Uber’s largest departments will take at least some of the staff cuts.
According to data on Whober, Uber’s internal employee listing site, viewed by Business Insider, the company employs just fewer than 9,300 people in the US.
Uber’s biggest US department, at 3,836 employees, is the engineering department that reports to the chief technology officer. Uber’s longtime chief technology officer, Thuan Pham, announced he would resign effective May 16. Pham was an iconic and powerful figure at the company.
The second-biggest US department is Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group, the unit building self-driving cars, with 1,423 people. This group may have enough funds to avoid big layoffs, but that depends on if it is concerned about preserving its cash. In July, the group raised $1 billion in funding from a consortium of investors — $400 million from Toyota, $333 million from SoftBank, and $267 million from Denso — and spun out ATG into its own group.
The third-biggest group consists of people that work in a variety of programs for drivers, safety, and for Uber Money, the financial-products unit the company launched in October. This collection of groups employs about 865 people in the US, according to data seen by Business Insider.
The unit that handles core infrastructure employs about 632 people, the data showed. The rides group employs 724 in the US, and Eats employs 471. And there are a handful of other groups with hundreds of employees as well, according to the Whober data from earlier this month.
Are you an insider with insight to share? Contact Julie Bort via email at jbort@businessinsider.com or on encrypted chat app Signal at (970) 430-6112 (no PR inquiries, please). Open DMs on Twitter @Julie188.