Block to cut more than 4,000 jobs amid AI disruption of the workplace
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Fintech company Block said Thursday that it’s cutting more than 4,000 workers or nearly half of its workforce as artificial intelligence disrupts the way people work.The Oakland parent company of payment services Square and Cash App saw its stock surge by more than 23% in after-hours trading after making the layoff announcement.Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and head of Block, said in a post on social media site X that the company isn’t make the decision because the company is in financial trouble.
“We’re already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company,” he said.Block is the latest tech company to announce massive cuts as employers push workers to use more AI tools to do more with fewer people.Amazon in January said it was laying off 16,000 people as part of effort to remove layers within the company.
Business The tech industry, once seen as a relatively stable place to grow a career, continues to be hit by job cuts in 2025.Tech companies including Meta, Block, Autodesk and others are among businesses that have slashed their workforce.Block has laid off workers in previous years.
In 2025, Block said it planned to slash 931 jobs, or 8% of its workforce, citing performance and strategic issues but Dorsey said at the time that the company wasn’t trying to replace workers with AI.As tech companies embrace AI tools that can code, generate text and do other tasks, worker anxiety about whether their jobs will be automated have heightened.
In his note to employees Dorsey said that he was weighing whether to make cuts gradually throughout months or years but chose to act immediately.“Repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our abilit...