Uber is restricting fully remote work to about one per cent of its workforce, following the ride-hailing company’s announcement that it would eliminate approximately 3,300 jobs in its biggest workforce reduction since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The firm’s Chief Executive Officer, Dara Khosrowshahi, disclosed the change in a memo sent to employees and published on Uber’s website, seen by PUNCH Online on Wednesday, stating that the company would ask most of its existing remote employees to relocate to an office.

“We are also asking the vast majority of remote employees to move to an office, and going forward, only 1% of employees will be remote,” the executive wrote.

Uber did not disclose how many employees currently work fully remotely, so the memo does not indicate how many workers are being asked to move to an office.

The company will, however, retain its hybrid working policy, which requires employees to work from an office three days a week.

Khosrowshahi said the new approach was informed by the benefits Uber had observed from employees working together physically, particularly in collaboration, problem-solving and the development of early-career employees.

“The benefits of sitting together, collaborating in person, and solving problems as a team are clearer than ever in our post-COVID world,” he stated.

The CEO said Uber was also establishing clearer principles guiding where roles and teams should be based, with the goal of concentrating employees in a smaller number of key hubs.

Global teams will be concentrated in Uber’s largest global hubs, including New York and San Francisco, while regional teams will be based in designated regional hubs, local teams in country hubs and technology teams in technology hubs.

The company will also prioritise co-location between managers and their teams wherever possible, particularly for employees earlier in their careers.

The layoffs form part of a broader restructuring aimed at simplifying Uber’s organisation, reducing management layers and eliminating small teams with limited numbers of direct reports.

Khosrowshahi said Uber had grown substantially over the past five years, but that expansion had created additional organisational layers, greater coordination requirements and more fragmented ownership.

The restructuring is expected to reduce Uber’s management ranks by about 20 per cent and cut the number of so-called micro-teams, made up of managers with only one or two direct reports, by about half.

In Nigeria, the company ended its ride-hailing operations in September after about 12 years in the country, with the exit coming as the company faced changes in its local operating environment and competition from other mobility platforms. It also ended operations in Uganda.

Uber began operations in Lagos in 2014 and subsequently expanded its services to other Nigerian cities. Its departure leaves Bolt and other ride-hailing platforms to compete for drivers and passengers in a market that has grown significantly since Uber introduced its service.