Canva's 1,271 Isn't All Layoffs. Pitch the 48% Who Work Outside Sydney

If you recruit engineers in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth or Auckland, the Canva number in every headline is the wrong list to work from. The 1,271 roles, about 22% of the company, lump together people being cut, people moved into different roles and people being told to move to Sydney, and Canva hasn't said how many fall into each group. The people you can actually reach are the ones nobody is counting: engineers who will say no to Sydney.

What did Canva actually announce in November 2026?

Canva said 1,271 roles, roughly 22% of a workforce of about 5,800, would be cut, changed or relocated, and it has not broken that number down. ABC News rounded it to 1,270. Every "Canva layoffs 2026" list you see is a guess built on that unsplit total.

The structural changes are clearer than the headcount:

• Product, Growth and Platform merge into a single Product Org.
• Narrow specialist roles get folded into broader ones.
• Management layers get cut.
• Relocation requests go to some staff in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
• Hybrid staff are expected in the office two to three days a week from January.

The cause is money. Growth slowed this year for the first time in a decade, and in August Canva cut its 2026 revenue-growth forecast from 30% to 20% (AFR, via Fortune). Melanie Perkins called it the "hardest moment in our 13-year history" in her memo.

What Canva didn't say matters more to a recruiter. It hasn't said how many people are leaving outright, how many roles are moving, or how many people are being asked to relocate. So you can't build a reliable layoff list, and you shouldn't try.

Why is location a better filter than "who was laid off"?

Location is the better filter because Canva published no breakdown of the 1,271, while an engineer's location usually sits right there on their profile, and the relocation push lands on people outside Sydney. A location search is something you can run today. A layoff list is something you'd have to invent.

In Refolk's index of professional profiles, 689 people in Australia list "Canva" in their headline alongside an engineering title (Software Engineer, Senior, Staff or Engineering Manager). In a 25-profile sample, 23 still work at Canva. Senior Software Engineer is the most common title, at 12 of 25.

The location split is the useful part. 11 of the 25 are in Sydney. 12 are in other named places: Melbourne 6, Perth 3, and Queensland 3 (Brisbane, Gold Coast and Burleigh Waters). The last 2 just say "Australia".

48%

Here's how the three Canva pools compare in Refolk's index:

Two derived ratios: the Australian engineer pool is about 13.5 times the size of the NZ and Philippines pool, and there are roughly 5.8 engineering-titled profiles for every manager or PM profile in Australia.

The Gold Coast signal

Some of those non-Sydney engineers live where Canva has no office at all. Gold Coast and Burleigh Waters aren't hubs. Those look like remote arrangements, and a Sydney-centred team with two to three office days a week has no easy way to keep them. That's an inference, so check it on each profile. But the logic holds: the further an engineer lives from a Canva building, the less likely the January policy works for them.

Finding that group by keyword is fiddly, because "not Sydney, not a hub city" isn't a filter most search tools have. In Refolk I take the description as written ("Canva senior engineers in Queensland outside Brisbane") and return a ranked list.

Caveats on the counts

• Each count matches "Canva" against profile headlines, so it includes a few people who list Canva but have left. 23 to 24 of each 25-profile sample are current employees.
• Location splits come from 25-profile samples. Treat them as directional.
• Engineering Manager appears in both Australian queries, so the 689 and 119 overlap.

Is Melbourne the same pitch as Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth?

No. Melbourne is a full Canva campus, while Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth are co-working hubs, and that changes what a move to Sydney costs and what it gives back. A co-working hub is a shared workspace where an employee has a desk but usually not their own team in the room.

Canva's Australian setup is two campuses (Sydney and Melbourne) plus co-working hubs in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Its careers page says more than half its global staff are in Australia.

The pitch splits accordingly:

• Melbourne engineers are the largest non-Sydney group in the sample (6 of 25). They had a real office and colleagues nearby, and they have a strong local market to stay in. Lead with Melbourne software engineer jobs that keep them in the city and keep a team around them.
• Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide engineers probably never had a team in the room, so moving to Sydney gives them less in return. Lead with staying put and with flexibility that's written into the offer.
• Engineers in non-hub locations (Gold Coast, Burleigh Waters, "Australia") are the strongest remote candidates. If you're hiring remote engineers in Australia, start here.

Why are Canva's Engineering Managers the most exposed group?

Canva named management layers and narrow specialist roles as cut targets, and Engineering Managers dominate its management layer. Of the 119 manager and PM profiles in Refolk's index for Australia, Engineering Manager accounts for 17 of 25 sampled titles, or 68%.

Location for that layer: 11 of 25 are in Sydney, and 8 of 25 are in Melbourne, Brisbane or Canberra. So even managers who keep a role may face the same relocation question as engineers.

Expect two kinds of people to come out of this. First, laid-off Engineering Managers. Second, staff-level engineers and managers whose layer has been removed and who don't want to go back to pure individual-contributor work. Both are a strong match for one kind of buyer: the founder hiring a first engineering lead. Someone who has run a team inside a product company of 5,800 people, and who now wants to build rather than report, is normally hard for an early-stage company to pry loose.

A first engineering lead is also the hire where a slow search hurts most, because everything else on the roadmap waits for it. Handing it to an agency for a percentage fee is a hard cost to justify when this pool is about to come to market on its own.

What about Auckland and Canva's other international locations?

Auckland is a separate, smaller and overlooked pool, and nobody has reported how the Sydney push affects it. Refolk's index shows 51 engineering-titled Canva profiles across New Zealand and the Philippines. 14 of the 25 sampled are in Auckland.

The mix is heavier on management: Engineering Managers make up 8 of 25 sampled titles (32%), compared with 8% in the Australian engineer pool.

Don't assume Auckland is safe, and don't assume it's next. The reporting names Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth and says nothing about New Zealand. Treat Auckland engineers as warm, not hot. A message that asks how the reorg is landing for them will get a more honest answer than one that assumes they've been cut.

How do you find the Canva engineers who won't move to Sydney?

Search by location and title first, then confirm each person is still at Canva and outside Sydney. Here's the order that works:

1. Start from geography, not a layoff list. The 1,271 has no breakdown, so filter by city.
2. Exclude Sydney. Those 11 of 25 are the people least affected by the relocation push.
3. Flag non-hub locations. Gold Coast, Burleigh Waters, regional towns and bare "Australia" suggest remote arrangements.
4. Separate Melbourne from hub cities. They need different pitches (see above).
5. Tag Engineering Managers and staff engineers. They're the most exposed and the best fit for first-lead roles.
6. Confirm current employment. 23 of 25 in the sample still work at Canva, but check anyway.
7. Check their public work. Talks, side projects and anything else they've published tell you what they actually build, which a merged Product Org title won't.

Who else is competing to hire ex-Canva engineers?

Heidi Health, Future Secure AI and Atlassian are all in the same market. Heidi Health cut staff the same week, which adds AI-product engineers to the supply, and Future Secure AI just became Australia's newest unicorn, which makes it a likely buyer of this talent.

Atlassian shows up among current employers in Refolk's Canva-keyword results. It's the obvious competitor: a Sydney employer that also hires remotely. If your pitch to a Perth engineer is "you can stay in Perth," Atlassian can make the same offer, so you need a second reason. That's usually the problem, the scope, or the chance to lead.

The practical upshot for anyone trying to hire ex-Canva engineers:

• Speed of first contact matters. Reach people before the January office rule starts.
• Speed of close doesn't. The severance terms (below) mean most people won't sign fast.
• Differentiation matters most. Location flexibility alone won't beat Atlassian.

Why does Canva's severance mean you should pitch slowly?

Canva's exit package removes the financial pressure to take the next job quickly, so many leavers won't move until around Q2 2027. Your first message should start a conversation, not push for an interview this week.

The package includes:

• At least six months' salary, wherever the person is based.
• 12 months of healthcare where Canva already provides it.
• Career coaching and a year of LinkedIn Premium.
• Departing staff keep their laptops.
• Removal of the one-year vesting cliff for people who joined in the past year. A vesting cliff is the period before any granted equity vests at all, so removing it means recent hires leave with shares they would otherwise have lost.
• US$10K grants from the Canva Collective Fund, which takes no equity.

That last one matters. An equity-free grant is an invitation to start a company, and some leavers will try that first. If you're a founder, pitch those people as co-founders or founding engineers, not employees. If you're a recruiter, keep a list of who's building something, because not every one of those experiments will last.

Six months of salary buys a Canva engineer time. Your job is to be the obvious call when it runs out.

What should the first message to a Canva engineer say?

Name where they live, name a problem worth solving, and leave the restructure out of it. People who've just been told to move or leave are tired of being treated as a headline.

A first message that works usually includes:

• Their city, explicitly. "This role is based in Melbourne" or "fully remote from Perth" answers the question on their mind before they ask it.
• The office cadence, in writing. Canva is moving to two to three days. Say exactly what yours is.
• One specific problem. What they'd build in the first quarter, not a list of perks.
• Scope for managers. For Engineering Managers, say how many people they'd lead and whether they'd still write code.
• No pressure on timing. Acknowledge they may want a break. Offer a conversation in the new year.

What to leave out: "I saw the layoffs," guesses about whether they were affected, and any line that assumes they're out of work. 23 of 25 people in the sample are still employed there, and plenty will stay.

FAQ

How many people did Canva lay off in 2026?

Canva hasn't said. The 1,271 roles (about 22% of roughly 5,800 staff) covers cuts, changed roles and relocations together, with no breakdown. Leavers get at least six months' salary, and the company has said it's cutting management layers and narrow specialist roles, but the actual layoff count isn't public.

Which Canva locations are affected by the move to Sydney?

Reporting names Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth as places where some staff are being asked to relocate. Melbourne is a full campus, and the other three are co-working hubs. Nothing has been reported about Auckland, so treat its status as unknown.

When is the best time to contact Canva engineers?

Make first contact before the January return-to-office rule starts, while the relocation decision is live. Expect slow closes: with six months' pay, a removed vesting cliff and access to US$10K grants, many leavers won't feel pressure to commit until around Q2 2027.

Is it worth pitching Canva engineers who still have jobs?

Yes, especially outside Sydney. In Refolk's index sample, 48% of Australian Canva engineers are in named non-Sydney locations, and some live where Canva has no office. A role that keeps them where they live, with a clear office policy, answers the exact question the restructure just forced on them.