Uber is laying off about 23% of its People and Places division, the unit that houses its human resources, recruitment, workplace facilities, and culture teams, as part of a restructuring under newly promoted President Jill Hazelbaker.
The cuts, disclosed on June 3, 2026, affect well under 1% of Uber’s roughly 34,000 global employees, a company spokesperson told CNBC. Uber did not release a specific headcount for the reduction.
In a memo to employees, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi framed the move as a sharpening of the function rather than a retreat. “The changes are necessary to maximise the effectiveness of the People team and the enormous potential ahead of us,” he wrote.
Hazelbaker, who was elevated from Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer to President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer about three weeks earlier, told affected teams the company wanted a “more connected, modern, operationally excellent organisation.” She said parts of the company had become “too complex and fragmented, with overlapping responsibilities, unclear ownership, and teams operating too far from the businesses and partners they support.”
The restructuring comes during a strong commercial run for Uber, which reported first-quarter gross bookings of $ 53.7 billion, up 25% year-on-year. The company continues to maintain more than 800 active job listings, including roles tied to the commercialisation of its robotaxi services.
Uber explicitly distanced the layoffs from its artificial intelligence investments. The clarification follows reporting by The Information that the company exhausted its 2026 AI budget within four months. A spokesperson described the resulting spending controls as “soft limits” applied to agentic and coding tools, set on a per-tool basis, adding that tiered limits had been in place on some agentic AI tools for several months.
The reduction adds to a wider pattern of HR and recruitment teams being trimmed across the technology sector, as companies that expanded their people functions during high-growth hiring cycles now recalibrate amid slower headcount expansion.
