Uber is restricting fully remote work to about one per cent of its staff after announcing plans to cut some 3,300 jobs, its largest reduction since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi said in a memo to employees, later posted on the company website, that most existing remote workers would be asked to move to an office.
“We are also asking the vast majority of remote employees to move to an office, and going forward, only 1% of employees will be remote.” Uber did not say how many people now work fully from home, so the memo does not reveal how many must relocate. Hybrid work stays: three days a week in the office.
Khosrowshahi argued that sitting together helps collaboration, problem-solving and younger staff. Teams will be concentrated in fewer hubs—New York and San Francisco for global units, plus regional, country and technology hubs—with managers placed near their people where possible.
The layoffs are meant to flatten the company. Uber, he said, added layers and small teams as it grew. Management ranks are to fall by about 20 per cent and “micro-teams” of managers with only one or two reports by about half.
In Nigeria the firm ended ride-hailing in September after about 12 years, and left Uganda as well. It launched in Lagos in 2014. Bolt and other platforms now compete for the drivers and passengers it leaves behind.
The two decisions—fewer remote seats and fewer jobs—are the same philosophy: fewer nodes, more people in the same rooms, less coordination overhead. For staff who built lives around a remote contract, one per cent remote is a near-ban.
For a company that has already exited markets it no longer wants to fund, the memo is consistent. Uber is choosing hubs and in-person density over a scattered workforce. Whether that makes the product simpler, as Khosrowshahi claims, will show in the next product cycle—not in the headcount line alone.
