Australian design software firm Canva is restructuring operations across its business, affecting 1,271 employees or 22 per cent of its workforce through layoffs, role changes and relocations.

The reorganization hits the company after its first expansion slowdown in a decade, co-founder and chief executive Melanie Perkins said in a message to staff published on Canva’s website in November 2026.

Perkins founded the 13-year-old company alongside her husband, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams as Canva scaled to more than 265 million monthly active users.

Employees losing their positions will receive six months of salary alongside 12 months of extended health insurance coverage and career counseling services. Co-founder and chief executive Melanie Perkins informed staff through an internal memo that the reorganization follows months of evaluation regarding technological shifts and internal bureaucracy.

Leadership plans to eliminate subspecialization, strip out middle-management tiers and consolidate divided functional teams into shared physical workspaces. The business aims to shift developer hours back toward building software rather than managing organizational processes.

“This is without a doubt the hardest moment in our thirteen-year history,” said Perkins, who founded Canva with her husband, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams. “Success in our first chapter doesn’t guarantee success in the next.”

Canva expanded aggressively over the past decade by targeting non-professional creators, social media marketing teams and small retail operators who found legacy graphic design suites too complex or expensive. The resulting momentum attracted millions of corporate teams across the Asia-Pacific region, driving competition directly against enterprise stalwarts.

Consolidating teams back into physical offices while flattening reporting lines exposes operational friction inside software enterprises that expanded rapidly during periods of low interest rates.

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