Coursera to Lay Off 10%, Its Second Round Since the Udemy Merger

Coursera announced its first layoffs as a merged company in July, eight weeks after its merger with Udemy closed. Four months later, on November 10, it said it will lay off about 10% of its global workforce.

As in July, Coursera didn’t say how many people will be laid off, only what the round will cost. Based on that, Class Central estimates about 250 people. It isn’t clear how many of them have been told yet.

The July round cost more than Coursera expected: $12.9 million so far, against an estimate of $8 million to $11 million. Our estimate for it is now about 235 people, up from 150.

Together, the two rounds come to almost 500 people, or about 18% of the 2,687 employees Coursera and Udemy had between them at the end of 2025.

This is the sixth round of layoffs across the two companies since 2022.

The last column counts jobs in California, which requires a public notice before a large layoff. July’s notices listed 31 people at Coursera’s Mountain View headquarters and 28 at Udemy’s San Francisco office. None have appeared for this round yet.

These layoffs are part of the cost cutting Coursera promised when it merged with Udemy: $115 million a year, within two years. It now expects to get there by the end of this year, eight months after the merger closed.

Revenue is falling too. Coursera made $377 million last quarter, about 3% less than Coursera and Udemy made between them a year earlier.

Single-course sales fell 41%, while subscriptions and sales to companies grew. Coursera pointed to fewer people buying single courses on Udemy. I wrote about this last year: Udemy has been steering learners toward subscriptions, where it keeps a bigger share of the money, and single-course sales have been falling since.

Coursera doesn’t expect that to change soon. It expects revenue to drop again in Q4, and for now it is assuming another decline in 2027.

The stock fell 25% the day after Coursera said so. The company is now worth about $930 million, less than its roughly $1.5 billion in annual revenue.

The following week, Pale Fire Capital, a Prague-based investment group, bought more shares and now owns 14.7% of Coursera. Coursera’s board responded by adopting a “poison pill” to keep any investor from reaching 15% without its approval. I’m not sure what Pale Fire’s goals are.

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