Canva is announcing changes and layoffs affecting 22 percent of its staff

Canva is cutting 1,271 positions, about 22 percent of its workforce, co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins announced. The design platform said the reductions are part of a broader restructuring that will also change some remaining roles and require some employees to relocate to centralized hubs. Perkins said the company would be parting with colleagues who helped build Canva into what it is today.

In a statement, Perkins said Canva had considered a range of alternatives before concluding that incremental adjustments would not be sufficient. She framed the move as a refounding of the company, returning it to its origins of small, empowered teams that have the freedom to make decisions, take ownership and focus on what matters most for its community. The goal, she said, is to position Canva for the next decade.

The restructuring includes merging Canva's Product, Growth and Platform teams into a single product organization. The company is also simplifying layers of management and consolidating responsibilities that overlap. Sydney is set to become the primary home for more of Canva's product teams, along with roles in other specialties where shared context and close collaboration are considered especially important.

Canva will additionally expect most hybrid employees to be in an office two to three days a week beginning in January, depending on what makes sense in their area. The company did not specify which teams or locations would be most affected beyond the consolidation in Sydney.

Workers who leave Canva will receive severance that includes at least six months of salary, twelve months of healthcare coverage and career support resources. The company did not say how the departures would be timed.

The announcement follows layoffs at Squarespace, which disclosed cuts affecting 19 percent of its staff one day earlier. Canva's reductions are larger in percentage terms than those at Squarespace, though the two companies did not report comparable headcount figures in the source material.

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