Canva restructuring to affect 22% of staff as growth slows
Canva will cut jobs, change roles and relocate some employees in a restructuring affecting 1,271 people, or 22% of its workforce, after growth slowed for the first time in a decade, Qazinform News Agency reports.
In a statement published Nov. 4, co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins said the changes would reshape the company’s structure, team locations and staffing needs. Not all affected employees will lose their jobs: some will move into different roles or be asked to relocate. Canva did not specify how many employees would leave.
“This is without doubt the hardest moment in our thirteen-year history,” Perkins wrote.
The announcement comes as the design platform, used by hundreds of millions of people, faces what Perkins described as its most challenging year. She said new technology was changing how people create content and what they expect from products.
“After exploring a wide range of alternatives, I’ve come to the difficult conclusion that small changes won’t be enough,” she said.
Canva will merge its Product, Growth and Platform teams into a single organization, reduce management layers and consolidate overlapping responsibilities. Perkins said increasingly specialized teams had fragmented ownership of projects and created too many handovers, making it harder to improve the platform as a whole.
The company will also make Sydney the main base for more product teams and certain other roles. Employees asked to relocate will receive support, while most hybrid workers will be expected to spend about two to three days a week in the office beginning in January.
For departing employees, Canva pledged at least six months’ salary, including statutory entitlements, regardless of location. It will also provide 12 months of continued health care coverage in countries where it already offers the benefit, along with career coaching and help finding new roles. Employees leaving the company will be allowed to keep their work MacBooks.
A new Canva Collective Fund will offer $10,000 grants to departing employees who want to launch a business or a community project. They will have until Dec. 14 to register their interest, and Canva will not take an ownership stake in their ventures.
With employees across 37 countries, the company said the timing and process of the changes would vary according to local requirements. A companywide meeting is scheduled for Nov. 10 to discuss the restructuring and answer employees’ questions.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that Canva had acquired animation company Cavalry and advertising technology startup Mango AI as part of efforts to expand its professional creative and marketing tools.
