Online design and publishing platform Canva is cutting jobs and relocating workers as it faces challenges from artificial intelligence (AI).
The Australian company announced Tuesday (Nov. 3) that 22% of its staff — around 1,271 people — will lose their jobs, have their roles changed or relocate to new “centralized hubs.”
In a note to employees published on the Canva website, Co-Founder and CEO Melanie Perkins said the move comes as the company’s growth has slowed for the first time in a decade.
This is happening at a time when new “technology is transforming what people can create, how they create it, and what they expect from the products they use,” the message said.
“After exploring a wide range of alternatives, I’ve come to the difficult conclusion that small changes won’t be enough,” Perkins wrote.
“To set ourselves up for the next decade, we need to refound Canva, getting back to our roots of small, empowered teams with the freedom to make decisions, take ownership and focus on what matters most for our community.”
While it is not clear how many jobs will be cut at Canva, the changes are happening in a year that has seen several tech companies institute layoffs.
Last week saw reports that Microsoft had offered buyouts to 60,000 employees, primarily ones not involved in data centers, sales or marketing. The tech giant has also held several rounds of layoffs in the last few years, including one in July in which Microsoft offered buyouts to 8,750 workers who had reached retirement age, with more than 30% of them accepting the offer.
“The labor market is being reshaped by technology in real time,” Andy Challenger, labor and workplace expert and chief revenue officer at Challenger, Gray and Christmas, said in a report issued in May.
“AI is now the leading reason companies give for cutting jobs, and the primary industry citing it is technology. Technology, already the year’s biggest job cutter, saw its steepest month of cuts since early 2023, even as it remains the sector with the most hiring plans this year.”
PYMNTS examined the trend in April after a series of layoffs in the FinTech space, reporting that AI is “already altering staffing requirements. Tools that generate code, automate documentation, analyze risk signals and manage customer interactions are reducing the need for large teams in certain functions.”