Canva Cuts 1,271 Roles, 22% of Staff, With Six Months' Severance

Canva is cutting 1,271 roles, 22% of its entire workforce, CEO Melanie Perkins told employees on November 4, 2026. The design software company, once a decade-long growth machine, says growth has now slowed for the first time in ten years.

"Sadly, it will also mean saying goodbye to teammates and friends who have helped build Canva into what it is today," Perkins wrote to staff, per the BBC. She called the past period "our hardest year yet."

What's driving the restructuring?

Canva says it's hitting reset. The company is merging three units — Product, Growth, and Platform — into a single product group, The Verge reports. Management layers get trimmed. Some surviving staff must change roles or relocate to centralized hubs, with more positions concentrated in Sydney, where Canva is headquartered.

Perkins framed the new structure around "small, empowered teams." That's a deliberate shift away from layered bureaucracy toward fewer, broader roles at hub locations, and it means even employees who keep a job may face a move or a different seat.

The sector context matters here. Squarespace announced a 19% staff cut one day earlier. Two major design and website software firms shedding roughly a fifth of headcount inside 48 hours signals real margin pressure in the category, not company-specific noise.

What do departing employees get?

Canva's severance package is unusually extensive, as NDTV puts it. Departing staff receive:

• At least six months' pay
• A year of health coverage
• Career transition support
• $10,000 to launch their own business
• A year of LinkedIn Premium
• They keep their company MacBooks

For an individual affected, the package buys roughly two quarters of runway plus a small startup stake — materially better than the statutory minimums common in US and Australian tech layoffs.

Why is the handling drawing applause?

The layoff announcement itself is earning praise. One commenter on X called it "a masterclass in how to handle layoffs. ... next-level classy. Thoughtful, honest and generous."

The praise reflects process, not just money. Perkins disclosed the exact number of affected roles, named the structural cause, and paired the cut with tangible support rather than a bare email. Compare that with the abrupt, same-day-lockout layoffs that have marked much of the 2022–2026 tech contraction.

Canva hasn't disclosed which functions absorb the deepest cuts, so anyone in product, growth, or platform roles at the firm should watch the internal mapping as the merged product group takes shape over the coming weeks.

Whether Squarespace and Canva mark the start of a broader design-software retrenchment will show up in the next round of sector hiring and earnings data.