According to a letter sent by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, about 350 more staffers at the not-a-cab company are being laid off across multiple departments, marking its third major round of layoffs in about as many months.
Uber, which has underperformed in the market since going public, sent 400 members of its marketing team packing in July. They were joined by a combined 435 product and engineering staffers who were downsized in September. Including the 350 employees euphemistically axed from divisions such as self-driving tech, marketing, and recruiting today, Uber has let go a little more than 4 per cent of its global workforce.
In his note obtained by CNBC, Khosrowshahi describes these 350 departing employees as “the last wave” of layoffs. He also, as in previous rounds of downsizing, made a point of describing the fired workers as dead weight, rather than human sacrifices so the perennially money-losing operation can seem like a sounder investment (a tactic which unfortunately seems to work more often than not, at least in the short term).
“We all have to play a part by establishing a new normal in how we work,” the letter reads, “identifying and eliminating duplicate work, upholding high standards for performance, giving direct feedback and taking action when expectations aren’t being met, and eliminating the bureaucracy that tends to creep as companies grow.”
Uber Eats — the company’s restaurant delivery side — saw layoffs in this allegedly final push to reduce staffing overhead, an unusual move as last week it announced moves to acquire a majority stake in grocery delivery start-up Cornershop.
We’ve reached out to Uber for comment and will update if we hear back.