Canva shake-up hits 1,271 staff, more than a fifth of the company

One of Australia’s best-known tech companies is reorganising from the top down. Canva says 1,271 people, or 22% of the company, will be affected by a restructure announced to staff on Wednesday.

Co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins put it bluntly in a note to staff. “This is without doubt the hardest moment in our thirteen-year history.”

Not everyone affected is losing their job

The 1,271 figure covers three different outcomes. Some people will have their roles changed. Some will be asked to relocate to central hubs. Others will leave the company.

Canva hasn’t said how many fall into each group. That matters, because the headline number isn’t a count of redundancies.

The changes reach across Canva’s teams in 37 countries, so the timing of conversations will vary by location. Affected staff get a one-on-one meeting with a senior leader. A company-wide all-hands meeting is set for 10 November.

Why Canva says small changes won’t do

Perkins says this has been Canva’s “hardest year yet” and that growth “slowed for the first time in a decade”. New technology is also changing what people create, how they create it, and what they expect from the products they use.

The conclusion: tweaks won’t be enough. Canva wants to “refound” itself and get back to small, empowered teams.

In practice, that means three things:

• Fewer, bigger teams. Product, Growth and Platform merge into a single product organisation.
• Broader jobs. Narrow specialist roles fold into broader ones, with simpler management layers.
• People sitting together. Teams that work closely get moved into the same place.

Sydney gets more of Canva’s product work

The note names one city. “Sydney will become the primary home for more of our product teams,” Perkins writes. That includes some other roles where close collaboration matters.

Canva says it will keep investing in its global team, especially where it needs to be close to its community, customers and markets. It doesn’t name any other hubs.

There’s also a change for those who stay. From January, most staff on hybrid arrangements are expected in the office about two to three days a week.

For Australia’s tech scene, that’s a mixed picture. One of the country’s largest home-grown software companies is shrinking its headcount while concentrating more of its product work in Sydney.

What it means if you use Canva

Nothing in the note changes Canva for its users. There’s no word on prices, the free plan, Canva AI or apps such as Affinity. Canva recently released Affinity for iPad with its core tools free.

If your business runs its social posts, flyers or presentations through Canva, there’s no action to take today.

What departing staff will get

Canva has spelled out a support package for people leaving:

• at least six months’ salary, including statutory entitlements, wherever they’re based
• the one-year vesting cliff removed for people who joined in the past year
• 12 months of continued healthcare where Canva provides it now
• 12 months of its employee assistance program, extended to family members
• a year of LinkedIn Premium and an opt-in alumni talent directory
• their work MacBook to keep
• a chance at a US$10,000 grant from a new Canva Collective Fund for people starting something of their own, with no equity taken; interest must be registered by 14 December

Canva’s earlier AI work, including its own image model, is covered in Canva launches its own AI image model.