Block, the financial technology company co-founded by Twitter‘s c-founder former CEO Jack Dorsey, announced Tuesday it will lay off 931 employees, marking its second significant workforce reduction in just over a year.
The reorganization will eliminate nearly 1,000 positions across the company, which operates popular platforms including Square, CashApp, and Tidal. Dorsey personally informed employees through an internal email, emphasizing that the cuts are not financially motivated or aimed at replacing workers with artificial intelligence.
Most jobs cut at Block are for performance-related issues
According to the company’s breakdown, the layoffs target three primary areas: strategic repositioning, performance management, and organizational hierarchy. Specifically, 391 employees will be cut for strategic reasons, 460 for performance-related issues, and 80 management positions will be eliminated to flatten the company’s organizational structure.
In addition to the layoffs, Block will close 748 currently open job positions, with exceptions for roles already in the offer stage, critical operational positions, and key leadership roles. The company will also reassign 193 managers to individual contributor positions.
Dorsey stressed the urgency of the reorganization, stating that the company has been “behind in our actions” and needs to move quickly to stay competitive in a transformative industry moment. The tech entrepreneur emphasized his commitment to increasing shareholder value and maintaining a “high bar of correctness” in organizational decisions.
The layoffs follow a similar restructuring in early 2024, when approximately 1,000 employees were also let go. As of December 2024, Block employed around 11,300 staff worldwide.
Jack Dorsey’s full email to Block employees
hi all.
today we’ll be making some org changes, including eliminating roles and beginning the consultation process in countries where required. i want to give you all the straight facts.
as I said at the last Block, there are three areas we’d like to address:
strategy: reducing from teams that are off strategy, and fixing our discipline ratios. performance: parting ways with people with a “below” or trending towards “below.” hierarchy: driving to flattening our org to a max depth of innercore+4 what that translates to in actual numbers of people:
strategy: 391 people performance: 460 people hierarchy: 80 managers (with 193 moving it individual contributor roles) we’re also closing all the 748 roles we had open with the exception of:
roles progressed to offer stage. critical operational roles start/accelerate roles key leadership roles none of the above points are trying to hit a specific financial target, replacing folks with AI, or changing our headcount cap. they are specific to our needs around strategy, raising the bar and acting faster on performance, and flattening our org so we can move faster and with less abstraction.
why do this all at once instead of over time? we’re behind in our actions, and that’s not fair to the individuals who work here or the company. when we know, we should move, and there hasn’t been enough movement. we need to move to help us meet and stay ahead of the transformational moment our industry is in.
this is the toughest part of my job, and I fight hard against any of these considerations. we must have a very high bar of correctness for us to take any action, which takes iteration and time to get right. i always balance this with the fact that everyone here, and those that are departing, has equity in our company. it’s my job to increase that value. we believe this will help us focus and execute better to do just that.
we’re working to give clarity to everyone as quickly, with as much context and support, as possible. you’ll receive an email soon about what this means for you. if there are areas where you think we could do better, please send me a note. direct feedback makes us better, and I always act when it makes sense.
thank you to all those leaving us. i am grateful and appreciative for you and your work, which has built us up to this point. we will continue to honor that by increasing our value to our customers, and therefore to all of our shareholders, including you.
thank you,
jack
