THE ESSENTIALS IN 30 SECONDS

  • SUSE plans a global reduction of about one in ten jobs, or roughly 190 of some 1,900 staff, according to a memo seen by The Register.
  • The memo attributes the cuts to automation and AI, saying new tools speed up work and flatten reporting lines, and stresses they are not about individual performance.
  • Affected employees are to be told by November 4; SUSE has not commented publicly, and the roles and countries concerned have not been disclosed.

Open-source software company SUSE plans to cut about 10% of its workforce worldwide, according to an internal memo obtained by The Register. The message was emailed to staff on November 2 by chief executive Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, a former Red Hat executive who joined SUSE in 2023.

What the memo says

As reported by The Register, the cuts follow a review of SUSE's strategy, the capabilities it needs and how its teams are organised. The memo names automation and AI as drivers, arguing that the company's current structure and cost base will not fit its future needs. Van Leeuwen writes that new tools are already speeding up work, flattening reporting lines and reducing the need for some existing roles, and that SUSE is shifting investment towards priority areas and away from others.

The chief executive presents the reduction as the company's own decision, linked to changing organisational needs rather than to the performance of individual employees. According to the memo, SUSE considered whether affected people could move into adapted roles.

With SUSE's owner, EQT, putting headcount at more than 1,900, the cut would amount to roughly 190 people, The Next Web calculates. Which teams, roles and countries are affected has not been disclosed, and the reports say nothing about severance terms.

Timeline and context

According to the memo, affected staff are to be informed by November 4, employee representatives nominated the following day and one-to-one meetings held the week after. The rest of the company will be briefed on SUSE's strategy for fiscal year 2027 on November 16.

The Register reported in September that SUSE had offered voluntary separation to long-serving employees; the publication says too few took it up. It also notes that some SUSE staff in the Czech Republic may have joined a trade union.

SUSE has been privately held by Swedish private equity firm EQT since 2023. EQT bought the company from Micro Focus in 2018 for $2.5 billion, listed it in Frankfurt in 2021 and later took it private again; in March, Reuters reported that EQT was weighing a sale.

A company statement is still missing

The details rest on the leaked memo: The Next Web found no statement in SUSE's newsroom, and neither report includes a comment from a company spokesperson. The announcement adds to a series of employers, from banks to governments, that have recently tied job cuts at least partly to AI.