Canva layoffs: a restructure touches 1,271 staff, 22% of the company, and the CEO's memo never names AI

Canva is restructuring in a way that puts 1,271 employees, 22% of its workforce, in line for layoffs, new roles or relocation, chief executive Melanie Perkins told staff on 4 November 2026, and her memo never mentions AI, The Register reported. The memo, titled "An important update on our team", does not say how many of the 1,271 will lose their jobs and how many will be moved or asked to relocate. Perkins says Canva's growth recently slowed for the first time in a decade and that the company has become inefficient. "After exploring a wide range of alternatives, I've come to the difficult conclusion that small changes won't be enough," she wrote, saying Canva needs to "refound" itself around "small, empowered teams". Product, growth and platform teams are being merged into a single Product Org, layers simplified and overlapping responsibilities consolidated, and more product teams moved to the Sydney headquarters, with some staff asked to relocate. People who leave keep their company MacBooks and get at least six months' pay, a year of health insurance and help finding new work. The closest the memo comes to technology is one sentence: "New technology is transforming what people can create, how they create it, and what they expect from the products they use." It does not say that AI is doing work Canva's staff did, and it cites no financial pressure; Canva is privately held and does not publish results the way a listed company must. Because Canva has not attributed the job cuts to AI, they are not counted as AI job losses in the tracker.