Mass layoffs: Block slashes staff by 40%, adding to growing tech cuts
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Block CEO Jack Dorsey. Photo: oe Raedle/Getty Images
Block announced on Thursday that it's cutting 4,000 employees, about 40% of its workforce.
The big picture: Block joins other tech companies that have slashed jobs in the past 12 months, adding to white-collar anxieties in a feel-bad job market.
Driving the news: In a social media post announcing the layoffs, Block CEO Jack Dorsey indicated that the company was cutting workers in favor of AI expansion.
- "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. and that's accelerating rapidly," Dorsey wrote.
Between the lines: The corporate landscape has so far supported that AI isn't broadly causing a job-apocalypse, but Block is the latest high-profile company to openly link its headcount reduction to an embrace of AI.
By the numbers: U.S. companies announced 108,435 layoffs for January, up 118% from a year ago and up 205% from December 2025, per a recent report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
- That's the highest number for any January since 2009.
Other tech companies with recent mass layoffs:
eBay
EBay also announced on Thursday it is cutting about 800 roles, or 6% of its workforce.
- EBay last week announced plans to acquire Depop for about $1.2 billion.
Amazon
Amazon said last month it will cut 16,000 jobs, just three months after slashing 14,000 roles across the company.
Pinterest announced last month plans to lay off "less than 15%" of its workforce.
- Like Block, Pinterest pointed to a reallocation of resources to AI.
Meta
Meta cut several hundred roles from its AI unit, the company announced in October.
- The Facebook and Instagram parent company also plans to lay off 10% of its Reality Labs division, The New York Times reported last month.
State of play: Other major tech companies that have laid off staff in the past 12 months include Automattic, Expedia, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Microsoft, Microchip Technology, Nextdoor and Workday.
