Block to cut more than 4,000 jobs amid AI disruption of the workplace

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 didn'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 an effort to remove layers within the company.

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 has heightened.

In his note to employees, Dorsey said that he was weighing whether to make cuts gradually over 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 ability to lead," he told workers. "I'd rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome."

Dorsey is also the co-founder of Twitter, which was later renamed to X after billionaire Elon Musk purchased the company in 2022.

As of December, Block had 10,205 full-time employees globally, according to the company's annual report. The company said it plans to reduce its workforce by the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2026.

The company's gross profit in 2025 reached more than $10 billion, up 17% compared to the previous year.

Dorsey said he plans to address employees in a live video session and noted that their emails and Slack will remain open until Thursday evening so they can say goodbye to colleagues.

"I know doing it this way might feel awkward," he said. "I'd rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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