Uber to shut down regional headquarters in Singapore

Uber is shutting down its Asia-Pacific hub in Singapore as it winds down 45 offices globally and lays off 3,000 more employees in a business resizing exercise.

“Over the next 12 months, we will begin the process of winding down our Singapore office and moving to a new APAC hub in a market where we operate our services,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wrote in an email to employees on Monday. The new market, however, was not specified.

The front desk at Uber’s new Asia-Pacific headquarters in downtown Singapore / Photo credit: Uber

In 2019, a year after it had merged its Southeast Asia operations with regional rival Grab, Uber opened its Singapore office to oversee operations in nine countries: Australia, New Zealand, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. At the time, the office had 165 employees, according to one account.

It was earlier reported that Uber will let go up to 700 staff in India, where it’s understood to employ a total of 2,000 workers. Earlier this month, the company said in a regulatory filing that it’s downsizing its total headcount by 14% or about 3,700 employees.

In addition to Singapore, Khosrowshahi said Uber is also shutting down an office in San Francisco, moving some of the employees to a new headquarters in the city.

Affected employees will be provided with severance packages, including healthcare coverage, according to the letter.

The chief exec also said that the company will be reducing investments in non-core projects and winding down its Incubator and AI Labs initiatives as part of its efforts to weather the Covid-19 crisis.

According to Khosrowshahi, the company is seeing an 80% drop in its ride-hailing business – its main profit driver – as people stay at home to mitigate the spread of the virus. He, however, noted with caution that Uber Eats is “doing great.”

“I will caution that while Eats growth is accelerating, the business today doesn’t come close to covering our expenses,” the CEO said.

Khosrowshahi reiterated that “hope is not a strategy” and that they have to make “hard actions” to secure the company’s future.

“I will not make any claims with absolute certainty regarding our future,” Khosrowshahi wrote. “I will tell you, however, that we are making really, really hard choices now, so that we can say our goodbyes, have as much clarity as we can, move forward, and start to build again with confidence.”