Block from the Cash app, Foundation and Square will disable more than a thousand employees

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Financial services firm Block Inc. laid off more than a thousand workers this week, nearly 10% of its workforce, as part of a broader restructuring announced last year by co-founder Jack Dorsey.

A Report According to Business Insider, the deals are effective Dec. 7, 2023, and Dorsim hinted at making Block “simplier” from an organizational perspective.

Dorsey warned employees to expect staff cuts, indicating that Block would increase its headcount to around 12,000 after it ballooned to 13,000 by the end of 2024.

The reduction will affect workers in various departments where the block operates. Cash Up, Foundation and Square, as well as other core operations, face layoffs as the company aims to align staff numbers with the current state of the business.

In an internal memo Tuesday, Dorsey said the layoffs were focused on teams at the Cash app, the Block Foundation division and Square. He described the moves as an effort to make the company more efficient and avoid layoffs.

“We decided it would be better to do it all at once, rather than do it randomly, which would be unfair to both the individuals and the company,” Dorsey shared.

The cuts build on a year of significant declines in the technology sector. Companies such as Meta, Amazon and Alphabet have cut headcounts after over-hiring during the pandemic, while many startups have laid off workers amid cash-strapped conditions. In the year The crypto industry has seen its own wave of discounts as the token price drops in 2022.

Blockchain has bet heavily on crypto as a major part of its future, recently unveiling plans for a self-sustaining Bitcoin wallet. It continues to operate the Cash app, which allows users to trade bitcoins and stocks, along with Square's point-of-sale systems and other payment infrastructure. In Q3 2023, the company's revenue reached $5.62 billion.

The inside piece sent by Jack Dorsey to the Block staff can be read below.

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* Today our Cash app, Foundation and Square teams are parting ways with many of our other teammates. Following the “Limitations” email I sent last year, each team took some time to review through a strong performance lens and strong prioritization. He reviewed each group's position against Cash App's long-term strategy to determine where cash reductions, consolidations or reorganizations are needed – Global, Marketing and Commerce are the most affected, but every discipline is shrinking. It is fundamentally focused on restructuring, centralizing and reducing layers of management to address redundancies. For Square, most of our impacts fall within the marketing, creative and PMM teams, where we've reduced overall budgets so we've had to adjust team sizes.*

Why does so much happen in one day? All these groups were confident in the direction they were taking, and similarly ready to act within 2-3 weeks. We decided that it would be better if we did it all at once, rather than putting it at random, which would be unfair to both the individuals and the company.

When we know we need to take action, we want to take it right away instead of letting things drag on forever. We have now been notified of our departing teammates, and throughout the day we will be meeting with those entering the consultation process in the countries where they are needed.

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