Atlassian's CEO spelled out 3 types of employees spared in his layoffs — and it's good news for graduates

• Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes outlined the types of employees he focused on retaining during recent cuts.
• On Wednesday, the software company said it was laying off 1,600 workers to help fund its AI efforts.
• Along with high performers and those with transferable skills, he also wants to retain graduates.

For recent graduates parsing layoff announcements for signals of their career prospects, a Wednesday letter from Atlassian's CEO offered a surprising vote of confidence for their value in the workplace.

Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes spelled out three categories of workers the company wanted to retain in its announcement that it was cutting 1,600 jobs, or roughly 10% of its global workforce.

"Guided by company-wide principles and a disparate impact analysis, we made some structural org changes and focused on retaining Atlassians with the skills to help us thrive as an AI-first company — this included strong performers, graduates, and Atlassians with transferable skills," Cannon-Brookes wrote in a message to employees that is publicly available.

While it's unsurprising that high performers or those with transferable skills were highlighted as categories spared, retaining graduates runs counter to a narrative that's gained steam in the last year.

It's no secret that recent graduates are facing a tough overall job market.

Studies have shown how these younger workers may be particularly exposed as AI tools get increasingly capable of doing tasks that can often fall to entry-level workers. In November, Stanford researchers said that early-career workers, those aged 22 to 25, in AI-exposed fields "experienced 16% relative employment declines." Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has repeatedly predicted that AI will wipe out up to half of entry-level white-collar jobs over the next 1 to 5 years.

Last October, Atlassian's CEO said the company was hiring more new graduates than in 2024 and 2023 because it needed more staff for its research and development and engineering teams.

"There's a good chance that those graduates come in with a different view on what it means to be a software developer and shake up the existing world of talent in a positive way for my business," he told the "20VC" podcast. He also said that the company would have more software engineers on staff in five years, not fewer.

A representative of Atlassian told Business Insider at the time that the company hired 95 new grads in its February 2025 intake and has hired 108 grads to start in February 2026. A spokesperson for the software firm declined to comment beyond Cannon-Brookes' message to employees.

In his letter, Cannon-Brookes didn't expand on why the company was focused on retaining graduates amid the cuts. It could be that the company views them as more likely to be AI native, or that it can get more out of them thanks to AI tools. Or it could be as simple as what the CEO previously said about the value of them bringing a fresh perspective into the workplace.

Of course, they also cost less too.