The freeze does not apply to Uber's autonomous vehicle and freight-shipping divisions.
The news comes a day after Uber reported second-quarter operating losses of $5.4 billion—a new record for the company.
That figure exaggerates Uber's quarterly burn rate because it includes more than $4 billion in one-time charges related to Uber's initial public offering.
Still, excluding IPO-related charges still leaves around $1.2 billion in operating losses, worse than the $1 billion the firm lost in the first quarter.
"During a recent all-hands meeting, a question about potential layoffs in the engineering department was also raised, but executives didn't provide any timelines," Yahoo's Krystal Hu reports.
With that much cash in the bank, Uber can continue at its current burn rate for more than two years.
But CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will face pressure from Wall Street to stem Uber's losses much sooner than that. »
