Overview
- The company announced on July 22 that it eliminated about 10% of the community operations (customer service) team and told some remote employees in that unit to relocate to hub offices.
- An internal memo from VP Megha Yethatika said the unit had become "too complex and siloed" and that a simpler structure is needed before scaling frontier AI tools.
- This is the second targeted reduction in under two months after a June round that cut roughly 23% of roles in Uber’s people division, which affected under 1% of the global workforce.
- Uber says it will slow hiring tied to internal AI use but continues to list more than 500 open roles, with recruiting concentrated on engineering jobs for autonomous and robotaxi projects.
- Shares dipped modestly on the announcement and the move follows a wider tech trend of firms citing AI efficiency when trimming staff, a shift that could push firms to reallocate jobs toward technical roles and create retraining needs for affected workers.