Canva Cuts 1,271 Jobs, 22% of Staff, After Its 'Hardest Year Yet'

Canva is laying off, changing roles or relocating 1,271 employees — about 22% of its workforce — in a restructuring its chief executive says is needed after the company's "hardest year yet."

The graphic design platform, launched in 2013, announced the cuts this week. In a memo to employees, co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins said growth slowed in the past year for the first time in a decade.

"After exploring a wide range of alternatives, I've come to the difficult conclusion that small changes won't be enough," Perkins wrote. "To set ourselves up for the next decade, we need to re-found Canva, getting back to our roots of small, empowered teams."

The plain takeaway: Canva grew for ten straight years, then didn't — and it's shrinking fast to fix that.

What do departing employees get?

The severance terms are unusually rich. Every affected employee receives at least six months of pay, regardless of where they live.

The package includes:

• Equity without the vesting clock. Canva equity normally vests after one year. Laid-off workers keep their equity no matter how long they've been at the company.
• 12 months of healthcare coverage in countries where Canva currently offers it.
• 12 months of access to Canva Care, the employee assistance program, for departing staff and their families.
• Their company MacBooks. "We know not everyone has a personal laptop," Perkins wrote in the memo.

That last item says a lot about the package's design: it's built for the exit, not the retention.

Is Canva helping people find new jobs?

Yes, and in detail. The company is offering individual coaching, interview preparation and a year of LinkedIn Premium to departing employees. It's assigning a significant portion of its own recruiting team to review resumes and run practice interviews.

There's also an alumni talent directory. Employees who opt in will be listed in a directory Canva shares with its investors, partners and wider industry network to help place them in new roles.

The company is backing entrepreneurship directly, too. Through the new Canva Collective Fund, departing employees who want to start a business or launch a community project can apply for $10,000 grants. Canva will not take an ownership stake in anything they create. Anyone leaving as part of the restructuring has until December 14 to register interest.

Canva is even managing the goodbye. Slack and Gmail will stay open through the end of the week, giving affected employees time to absorb the news and say farewell to colleagues on their own terms.

How does the industry read it?

Greg Simpson, who leads the global career transition and mobility practice at talent advisory firm LHH, said Canva's approach fits a broader shift toward more career support for departing employees.

"It does not surprise us to see an offer that's like this," Simpson told Business Insider in a recent interview.

Not everyone is so measured. Jasveer Singh, co-founder and CEO of KnotDating, called Canva's handling of the layoffs "a master-class" in an interview with Newsweek. He described the announcement as "thoughtful, honest and generous."

The verdict from outside: a layoff announcement can still earn praise — if the terms are real.

Why now?

Perkins pinned the restructuring to the numbers. After ten years of uninterrupted growth, Canva's expansion slowed. Her memo frames the cuts not as a trim but as a re-founding: smaller, empowered teams, closer to the company's roots.

With 22% of the workforce affected, the bet is that a leaner Canva moves faster in its second decade than the one that just had its hardest year. The December 14 deadline for the Collective Fund will be an early signal of how many departing employees plan to build something of their own.