Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi answers audience questions during a recording of the podcast “On With Kara Swisher” at the Bloomberg Center at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC, on December 15, 2025.
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Uber is cutting its human resources staff by 23% in an effort to streamline operations under new president Jill Hazelbaker.
“Changes are necessary to maximize the effectiveness of our HR teams and the enormous potential before us,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a memo.
Affected segments include recruiters and human resources professionals. Uber hasn’t disclosed how many employees it will cut, but a spokesperson for the ride-hailing giant said it would be “well under 1%” of its 34,000 employees.
Hazelbaker, who was promoted to president and chief executive officer last month, said in a memo to affected teams that the goal of the layoffs is to create a “more connected, modern and operationally superior organization.”
It added that some segments are “complex and fragmented, with overlapping responsibilities, unclear ownership, and operating too far from the businesses and partners their teams support.”
Bloomberg first reported the news.
Uber joins the list of companies laying off employees, with many citing the benefits of artificial intelligence in automating workloads and increasing efficiency.
The food delivery and ride-hailing company said the reductions were not due to AI.
Following a report from Bloomberg, Uber confirmed this week that it has introduced a rolling cap on employee spending on agent tools. The company says the base price is $1,500 per month, with limits increasing from there.
Uber’s technology chief previously said the company exceeded its 2026 AI budget within four months, The Information first reported.
In an email to CNBC, a spokesperson said these are “soft limits” for agent and coding technology, with budgets set for each tool.
“For several months, we have been making incremental spending on some agent AI tools,” they wrote.
— CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos contributed to this article.
