IT Leadership

Canva restructures around one Product org, affecting 1,271 staff as growth slows

3 min read

Three loose clusters of coloured squares, circles and triangles flow along dotted paths into a single orderly grid, with a few shapes resting apart at the edges, on off-white paper.

Canva says 1,271 people, 22% of staff, are affected by a reorganisation that merges Product, Growth and Platform and centres more product teams in Sydney. It has not said how many will lose their jobs.

In brief

  • The scale. In a note to staff published on Canva's newsroom, co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins said "1,271 people, or 22% of Canva, will be impacted". The 1,271 are affected (layoffs, role changes, relocations). Canva has not said how many will lose their jobs, which The Straits Times also notes.
  • The reason. Perkins wrote that "our growth has slowed for the first time in a decade". The Straits Times reported the same first slowdown in a decade.
  • The structure. Canva is "bringing Product, Growth and Platform together into one Product Org", reducing subspecialisation and "collapsing layers".
  • The location. "Sydney will become the primary home for more of our product teams." From January, Canva expects most hybrid staff to spend "around 2 to 3 days in the office each week".

What leavers get

The note lists at least six months of salary, "inclusive of statutory entitlements, regardless of location". It also lists 12 months of continued healthcare coverage "in countries where we currently provide this", and removal of the one-year vesting cliff "for those who joined in the past year". Other support includes 12 months of the employee assistance programme, career coaching, keeping their Canva MacBook, and US$10,000 grants from a new Canva Collective Fund for departing staff who want to start something of their own.

Why it matters beyond Canva

Perkins does not mention AI by name. She writes that "New technology is transforming what people can create, how they create it, and what they expect from the products they use." The Straits Times, carrying a Bloomberg report, framed the overhaul as AI forcing "a structural reckoning".

ByteNib's reading is that the note follows a familiar pattern as software growth slows. Companies merge the teams that build, grow and run the product, remove management layers, and bring staff back to fewer offices. The stated aim is faster ownership of bigger problems. The cost lands on specialists whose narrow roles are folded into broader ones.

What leaders should take from it

  1. Ask your SaaS vendors about roadmap continuity. A merger of Product and Platform can shift priorities. Enterprise Canva customers should ask their account teams whether named contacts or committed features change.
  2. Treat "affected" figures with care. A headcount that mixes exits, role changes and relocations is not a layoff count. Canva has not given a job-loss number.
  3. Expect relocation to cost talent. Hub strategies tend to lose people who cannot move. If you hire design or product staff, this is a window.

Sources and scope

The source of record is Melanie Perkins' note, An important update on our team, on Canva's newsroom. Context comes from The Straits Times (Bloomberg, 4 November 2026). Both were checked on 4 November 2026. Canva has not published how many of the 1,271 roles are redundancies. The industry reading and recommendations are ByteNib editorial analysis.

Drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by the editor before publication.

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