Canva Cuts or Moves 1,271 Jobs — 22% of Its Staff — While Growing

What Canva is actually changing

The headline number is 22%, but the reality is messier than a straight layoff: some people will lose their jobs, some will be asked to move, and some will see their roles reshaped.

In a company-wide message, co-founder and CEO Mel Perkins said Canva's structure had grown too complicated. Teams had split into "narrow areas of ownership," with too many managers and more handovers than the work required. The fix is to merge the Product, Growth and Platform groups into a single Product organization and fold specialist and management duties into broader roles.

The third piece is geography. Sydney, where Canva was founded, becomes the main location for more of its product development teams — which is why relocation is part of the package. Perkins said the company is committed to making that process as smooth as possible with "comprehensive support."

Canva frames this as a structural reset rather than pure cost-cutting, and says it is still on track to grow revenue year over year. But a restructuring touching more than a fifth of staff is a cost story no matter how it is labeled.

The severance package is unusually generous

For a company trimming headcount, Canva is being notably open-handed with the people leaving.

Departing staff get at least six months' salary and twelve months of healthcare coverage, plus other benefits. Canva is not asking for company-issued MacBooks back. Those who want to start something of their own can apply for $10,000 grants through the Canva Collective Fund, and the company says it will take no ownership or equity in what they build.

That is a stronger package than most tech layoffs in recent years, where severance often lands at two to three months. It also signals that Canva wants this to read as a deliberate reset, not a panic measure — and that it can afford to be seen that way.

Return-to-office arrives in 2027

Canva has been one of the more relaxed big tech employers on remote work. That ends — slowly.

From January 2027, hybrid workers will be asked to be in the office two or three days a week, depending on the role and location. The delay gives staff more than a year to adjust, which is softer than the immediate mandates many US giants imposed, but it is the same direction of travel.

The office push and the Sydney consolidation point the same way: Canva wants more of its people in fewer places, working more closely together. Whether that produces better products or just fewer meetings is the part nobody can measure yet.

Why now, when the numbers look fine?

Canva is not in trouble. That is what makes the timing interesting.

The company recently confirmed 250 million monthly users and says its in-house AI models have cut cost per task by 90%, with models that are 30 times cheaper and five times faster than before. As of September it had 120 AI researchers working on those models.

Efficiency gains like that change the math on headcount. If a smaller team can ship the same work with cheaper models, the case for layers of managers and narrow specialist roles gets harder to defend. Canva is far from the only company making that calculation — flattening management and consolidating teams has become the standard move across big tech this year, from Virgin Media O2's proposed 4,000 job cuts to the broader cost pressure showing up across the industry.

The difference is that Canva is doing it from a position of growth, not distress. That usually means the cuts are about speed and structure rather than survival — and that the people affected are paying for a problem they did not create.

What it means for you

For Canva users in the US, UK and EU, nothing changes on the product side: the service, pricing and features remain as they are, and Canva has not announced any change to its plans. The impact is on people, not on the app.

For anyone job-hunting in tech, the signal is familiar. Restructurings framed around "simplification" are becoming the norm, and the companies doing them are often profitable. Canva's severance terms are better than most, but the direction is the same one playing out across the sector.

Canva's restructuring is a bet that a simpler, more Sydney-centered company can move faster than a bigger, more distributed one. The severance is generous and the growth is real, but 1,271 people are still the ones absorbing the cost of a structure the company says it let get too complicated.