Canva announces layoffs: employees offered support, including MacBook and LinkedIn Premium

Canva has announced large-scale staff reductions. These changes are driven by rising artificial intelligence (AI) costs and automation processes. As a result of the cuts, about 22 percent of employees are at risk of being laid off, leading to approximately 1271 job losses.

Canva CEO Melanie Perkins sent an internal email to employees expressing regret over the difficulties and hardships people will face due to this situation, acknowledging that the company is going through a challenging period.

Currently, the company employs around 5700 people in 37 countries, including staff from India. However, there is no data yet on how many people were laid off in each specific country.

Although many tech companies have recently conducted layoffs, Canva's approach is different. The company provides departing employees with a free MacBook, six months' salary, and a one-year subscription to LinkedIn Premium.

Typically, upon termination, an employee receives severance pay, which includes payment for several months of work. However, Canva's policy is unique: all 1271 employees facing redundancy are allowed to keep their MacBook. According to the CEO, the purpose of providing the laptop is to ensure the employee has a device even after leaving the company, as the company knows that many people do not have their own personal laptop. The specific model of the laptop to be provided has not been disclosed.

In addition to the MacBook, laid-off employees will receive a LinkedIn Premium annual subscription. This will allow them to prepare for interviews and undergo career development coaching. The company also plans to engage its talent acquisition team to assist employees with resume writing and interview skill practice, which will facilitate their search for new employment.

Canva will also provide financial assistance to those who lose their jobs. The CEO stated that affected employees will receive at least six months' salary, including all legally mandated benefits. This service will be available to all employees regardless of their country of residence.

Furthermore, Canva is launching a collective fund. Through this fund, laid-off employees will be given a grant of ten thousand US dollars (equivalent to approximately 8.9 lakh rupees), enabling those who wish to start their own business to realize their plans.

Canva is undertaking a large-scale workforce restructuring affecting 1,271 employees, which accounts for 22% of its total staff, as it reorganizes its business to align with rapid technological changes. These changes include staff reductions, role modifications, and relocation requests, although the company has not yet disclosed the exact number of laid-off employees.

CEO Melanie Perkins stated that this restructuring followed the company's first growth slowdown in the last decade and reflects the need to rethink working methods and team organization. In a memo to employees published on November 4th, Perkins called this the most challenging moment in Canva's 13-year history. She noted that 'new technologies are transforming what people can create, how they do it, and what they expect from the products they use.'

The memorandum did not directly blame artificial intelligence for the staffing changes. It also cited slowing growth and a fragmented organizational structure that arose during the company's expansion. Perkins wrote: 'After studying a wide range of alternatives, I came to the difficult conclusion that small changes would not be enough. To prepare for the next decade, we need to restructure Canva by returning to our roots—small, empowered teams that have the freedom to make decisions, take responsibility, and focus on what is most important to our community.'

Canva will merge its product, growth, and platform teams into a single product organization, reduce narrow specialization, and eliminate management layers. Sydney will become the main base for more product teams. Starting in January, most hybrid employees will be required to work in the office two to three days a week, depending on their location.

Founded in Australia in 2013 by Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams, Canva has evolved into a global design platform. The company claims that its platform is used by over 250 million people monthly. Canva is now striving to move beyond template-based design. This year, Canva AI 2.0 was introduced, allowing users to create and edit multi-layered designs through dialogues with an AI assistant. In October, the company also announced new AI-powered tools and a design-focused model.

In August, Canva lowered its revenue growth forecast for 2026 from 30% to 20% because the cost of implementing AI features proved higher than expected. Competitors are also expanding their offerings. On November 3rd, Figma announced an AI feature that uses prototype interactions as context when generating code. In March, Atlassian announced layoffs of about 1,600 jobs, or 10% of its staff, partly to fund larger investments in AI. This week, the Squarespace platform announced a voluntary staff reduction of 19%, citing the need to streamline operations.

Regulation is developing parallel to technology. As of August 2nd, transparency requirements under the EU AI Act apply to certain AI systems. These include informing users about interaction with AI and ensuring machine-readable labels for AI-generated results. Canva assured that departing employees will receive at least six months' salary, 12 months of health insurance in countries where it is provided, career support, and access to $10,000 grants for those wishing to start their own business.

A worrying piece of news has emerged in the IT and outsourcing industry: the outsourcing firm Inodata India allegedly laid off up to 90 percent of its staff in a very short period.

According to reports, the reason for this large-scale purge was the sudden cessation of work related to a major project for media giant Meta. After Meta withdrew its tasks, the company did not have enough assignments for its employees, which led to a collective decision to lay them off.

One of the laid-off employees, who wished to remain anonymous, stated that Inodata India employed about 1000–1200 people, approximately 90% of whom were reportedly dismissed. Regarding compensation, it is reported that affected employees are being offered a severance package equivalent to four months' salary. However, it remains unclear whether this amount includes notice, severance pay, or other outstanding dues.

(Note: India Today cannot independently confirm claims regarding the connection to Meta or the exact layoff figures. The company was polled on this matter.)

The layoff process proved to be extremely abrupt, giving employees no time to prepare. A process analyst on Reddit reported that employees were suddenly called to an emergency HR meeting. At the meeting, it was announced that the main client (Meta) had reduced the scope of work, and consequently, their positions were eliminated.

The Reddit user claims that during the meeting, the employees were silenced so they could not ask questions. Less than an hour after the meeting ended, access to their Microsoft Office systems and work platforms was blocked. Another employee noted that after the office systems were shut down, they had to use WhatsApp to communicate with each other. Links to groups were created and distributed, and soon hundreds of worried, desperate, and helpless employees joined these groups.

Another user, who worked as an AI analyst at the company, specified that the Inodata project was being implemented not only in India but also in the US and the Philippines, and mass layoffs were also taking place in these three countries. When rumors of layoffs spread in India regarding the team in the Philippines via Zoom calls, employees were horrified.

Some employees discovered that their payslips listed October 26th as the last working day, after which they received termination letters sent to their personal email addresses.

An employee who visited the office to discuss the terms of termination reported hearing speculation among colleagues about a possible next round of cuts in the coming weeks. Nevertheless, this is based solely on rumors heard in the office.

India Today contacted Inodata and Meta for official statements regarding the withdrawal of Meta's work, the scale of the layoffs, and the severance package. The news will be updated upon receiving responses from the companies.