Block Cuts 4,000 Jobs as AI Reshapes Workforce Strategy

The company’s 50% headcount reduction adds to a wave of AI‑cited cuts across tech, even among profitable firms, as forecasts warn of permanent, automation‑driven losses deeper than the Great Recession.

Credit: Anna_Summer – shutterstock.com Block, the payments and financial services company led by Jack Dorsey, is cutting more than 4,000 jobs, nearly half its workforce, because AI tools have made a leaner organisation not just possible, but strategically preferable, Dorsey said in a letter to its shareholders .

The cuts will reduce Block’s headcount from over 10,000 to just under 6,000. The company is not cutting from a position of weakness. Block posted gross profit of $10.36 billion in fiscal year 2025, up 17% year over year, and is raising its 2026 gross profit guidance to $12.20 billion.

In Q4 2025 alone, gross profit grew 24%, the company said in its earnings call. “Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” Dorsey wrote in the latter. “A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better.