Uber Technologies is cutting roughly 3,300 jobs, or 10 per cent of its global workforce, to streamline management and fund an autonomous driving push. The retrenchment is the company’s largest round of dismissals since May 2020, when it shed 6,700 workers during the pandemic.
Chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi announced the restructuring in a staff memo on September 2. The reductions target middle management rather than operational staff, with the company seeking to eliminate bureaucratic bottlenecks that slowed product decisions.
Stripping Management Layers
The overhaul cuts the number of workers positioned seven or more reporting tiers below the chief executive by 20 per cent. Internal teams with only one or two direct reports will shrink by nearly half, while several operational divisions will merge across regional hubs.
Remote work will also contract sharply. Uber will cap fully remote positions at about 1 per cent of its total headcount while enforcing its existing policy requiring three days a week in the office. The platform finished 2025 with approximately 34,000 global employees.
Unlike other technology peers cutting headcount this year, Khosrowshahi did not attribute the dismissals to artificial intelligence tools. Industry tracker layoffs.fyi recorded more than 123,000 tech redundancies across roughly 390 businesses in 2026, many citing automated workflow gains.
Redirecting Capital to Autonomous Fleets
Savings from the payroll cuts will help finance more than US$10 billion in planned autonomous vehicle investments. Uber wants to secure its position as a central booking marketplace for driverless fleets operated by external partners, countering threats from standalone operators such as Waymo and Tesla.
Tensions with autonomous developers have escalated as suppliers expand their own direct-to-consumer networks. Waymo currently operates driverless vehicles through the Uber app in Austin and Atlanta, but it is rolling out into additional metropolitan areas independently.
For mobility operators across Asia and Western markets, the transition to robotaxis threatens the traditional middleman fee structure built on gig workers. While Southeast Asian operators continue to rely on human drivers, platform valuations increasingly hinge on controlling autonomous dispatch software rather than maintaining large administrative headcounts.
Uber shares gained 2 per cent in pre-market trading following the announcement, after dropping nearly 8 per cent earlier in the year. The company must now deploy its autonomous capital budget while renegotiating fleet supply pacts across key urban markets.
