Canva Will Restructure 22% of Staff After Growth Slows

By Elena Vasquez

Canva will lay off, relocate or change the roles of 1,271 employees, equal to 22% of its workforce, after growth slowed for the first time in ten years, the company said Tuesday, 3 November.

Melanie Perkins, Canva's co-founder and CEO, disclosed the restructuring in a corporate blog post. The affected total covers layoffs, relocations and role changes, rather than a single type of job cut.

That distinction sets the scale of the company's reorganization. It also limits what can be concluded about outright job losses, because Canva did not break down the 1,271 employees across those three categories.

What changed the company's plan?

Canva lowered its 2026 growth forecast from 30% to 20% in August. The company linked the 10-percentage-point revision to rising costs from its artificial intelligence (AI) rollout.

According to Canva, the lower forecast now sits alongside a slower growth rate for the first time in the company's 13-year history. The two developments form the stated backdrop for Perkins's restructuring decision.

Perkins wrote: “After months of thinking through how to set Canva up for the next chapter, we have made the incredibly hard decision to make significant changes to how we’re organized, where some of our teams are based, and the roles and skills we need for the future.”

Her explanation places organization, team location and future skills in one decision. It does not identify a particular product, department or market as the cause. Canva's announcement provides no cost figure for the AI rollout and no stated savings target for the workforce action.

What does the restructuring cover?

Perkins said the company made the decision after the “hardest year yet” in the Australian-founded company's 13-year history. The phrase matches the broader slowdown Canva reported, rather than adding a separate financial measure.

Perkins described three operational components:

• Organization: Canva is changing how the company is organized.
• Location: Canva is changing where some teams are based.
• Roles and skills: Canva is aligning positions and capabilities with what it says the future requires.

Each component carries a different consequence for employees. A relocation does not itself indicate a dismissal, and a changed role does not establish a reduction in overall headcount.

Canva did not disclose how many of the 1,271 affected employees face each outcome. The company also did not provide a departure timetable, severance terms, target locations or a mix of retained and departing roles.

That reporting gap matters for competitors and customers assessing the scale of the reorganization. Without the category breakdown, the 22% figure cannot be treated as a 22% headcount reduction.

What should marketing buyers watch?

Canva's announcement connects three developments: slower growth, a reduced 2026 forecast and higher AI rollout costs. The workforce changes are the company's response to that combination, according to Perkins.

Canva's announcement does not say that AI will replace specific jobs at the company. It links rising rollout costs to the forecast revision, not to a specific role, team or function.

For marketing teams evaluating the platform, Canva's announcement offers no detail about product releases, pricing, campaign support or service continuity. It also gives no completion date for the changes affecting 1,271 employees.

Canva's next useful disclosure would be the split among layoffs, relocations and role changes. A timetable and measured cost effects would clarify whether the 1,271-person reorganization amounts to large-scale redeployment, deeper contraction, or both.