Taxi hailing service Uber has laid off 435 members of staff in its product and engineering team. The company laid off 170 people in its product team, and 265 in its Engineering team after its revenue, was slim.
The development is coming not long after an estimate of a third of its global marketing staff was also laid off.
The staff cuts will however not affect workers at UberEats which is Uber’s meal delivery service.
Uber however maintains that the layoffs which account for 8% of the company’s product and engineering team, are necessary in order to guarantee a competitive edge.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO); Dara Khosrowshahi believes that the staff cuts will increase the company’s efficiency in operations adding that, “There’s a general sense that while we’ve grown fast, we’ve slowed down.”
A statement from Uber reads, “Previously, to meet the demands of a hyper-growth startup, we hired rapidly and in a decentralized way. While this worked for Uber in the past, now we need to shift how we design our organizations.”
The statement also revealed that the staff changes will help achieve a staff base that matches the company’s top priorities especially as the company is driving towards making its drivers independent contractors.
The new classification is expected to help the company save on labor costs which they would have otherwise paid if the drivers were full time employees.
