Canva cuts or relocates 1,271 roles in restructure

Canva said on Tuesday that it will restructure 1,271 roles, or 22% of its workforce, with some employees moving to centralised hubs and others leaving the company. Chief executive Melanie Perkins wrote in a memo that "small changes won't be enough" to position the design platform for its next chapter. The company did not specify how many of the affected people would lose their jobs versus change roles or relocate.

In the memo, published by Business Insider, Perkins called the move "without doubt the hardest moment in our thirteen-year history" and said this year "our growth has slowed for the first time in a decade". Canva had cut its 2026 revenue growth forecast to 20% from 30% in August. Perkins wrote that Canva needed to "refound" itself and return to small, empowered teams.

The reorganisation will merge product, growth and platform teams into one product organisation, reduce subspecialisation and collapse management layers. Sydney will become the main base for more product teams, and from January most hybrid workers will be expected in the office two or three days a week.

Departing employees will receive at least six months of salary, including any statutory entitlements, and 12 months of healthcare coverage in countries where Canva provides it. They can keep their Canva MacBooks, and those who joined in the past year will have the one-year vesting cliff removed. Canva will also offer career coaching, interview preparation, one year of LinkedIn Premium, and an alumni talent directory shared with investors and partners. The company is launching a Canva Collective Fund that will give US$10,000 grants to departing staff who want to start their own venture, with no equity taken by Canva.

Bloomberg Línea reported that investors have pulled back from software companies over concerns that AI tools such as Anthropic's Claude could cannibalise their business models. NewsCord reported that Canva has been shipping its own AI models to reduce costs and reduce reliance on third-party models, and that it lowered its revenue growth forecast to address what Perkins called "the average cost of an AI task" that was too high. The same report said Canva's valuation dropped from a peak of around US$40 billion in 2021 to about US$26 billion a year later. Unlike some peers, Canva did not mention AI in its restructure announcement.