Canva restructures 22% of the company, with layoffs, as growth slows for the first time in a decade

Canva co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins told employees on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, that 1,271 people, or 22% of the company, will be affected by changes to how Canva is organized, where teams are based and the roles it needs, including layoffs.

Canva was the design tool that made "I'm not a designer" stop being an excuse, and now generative AI is making that pitch available everywhere, including inside its rivals and the chatbots. Perkins doesn't blame AI by name, but "new technology is transforming what people can create" plus "growth slowed for the first time in a decade" is not subtle. The severance is unusually generous; the real story is a 13-year-old company deciding it has to start over to stay relevant.

Melanie Perkins, Canva's co-founder and chief executive, wrote that 1,271 people, or 22% of the company, will be affected. For some, that means a changed role, or being asked to move to a centralized hub. For others, it means leaving. Canva did not say how many of the 1,271 are layoffs. Those lines are hers.

She called it "the hardest moment in our thirteen-year history," said "this has been our hardest year yet," and said Canva's growth "has slowed for the first time in a decade." Those sentences are hers.

Her reason, in her words: "New technology is transforming what people can create, how they create it, and what they expect from the products they use," and "small changes won't be enough... we need to refound Canva." Refound, as she uses it, means rebuild the company rather than tweak it. She does not say that new technology replaced the affected roles. Those sentences are hers.

Three changes. Product, Growth, and Platform fold into one Product Org, one product group instead of three. Canva wants fewer subspecialties and fewer layers of management. A subspecialty, here, is a narrow job inside a job. Teams that work closely will sit in the same place, and Sydney becomes the main home for more product teams. From January, most hybrid staff are expected in the office about two to three days a week. Hybrid means they split time between home and the office. Those lines are hers.

People who are leaving get at least six months of salary, in any country, and that six months includes the payments local law already requires. It is not six months stacked on top of those payments. Canva is also dropping the one-year vesting cliff for people who joined in the past year. Vesting is company stock an employee earns over time. A cliff is a wait, here one year, before any of it is theirs. Dropping it means someone who has not reached a year does not lose that stock on the way out. Where Canva provides health care, it continues for 12 months. Its employee assistance program, the counseling benefit, continues for 12 months. There is career coaching and a year of LinkedIn Premium. People can opt in to an alumni list that Canva shares with investors and partners. Departing staff keep their Canva MacBooks. Those lines are Canva's.

A Canva Collective Fund will give grants of US$10,000 to departing employees who want to start something of their own. Canva takes no equity, no ownership stake in what they start. Registration closes Dec. 14. Those lines are Canva's.

Canva has teams in 37 countries, so the timing follows local rules and will not land on the same day everywhere. A company all-hands, a meeting of the whole staff, is set for Nov. 10. Those lines are Canva's.

The picture is Canva co-founders Cameron Adams, Melanie Perkins, and Cliff Obrecht standing together on stage at Canva Create in front of a large screen. The credit is Canva.

In plain terms, Perkins told the company that 1,271 people, 22% of Canva, will see a role change, a move, or an exit, and she did not say how many of those are layoffs. She said growth slowed for the first time in a decade, and that Canva has to refound itself. People who leave get at least six months of pay, a year of health care where Canva provides it, and a $10,000 grant if they want to start something.