1,000 Employees Let Go by Fintech Firm Led by Former X Chief Jack Dorsey
Jack Dorsey’s financial services company Block is laying off nearly 1,000 employees, affecting staff at the company’s Cash App, Afterpay and Square subsidiaries.
According to Insider’s report, the decision affected about 1,000 people, or 10 percent of Block’s staff.
“We decided that it would be better to do them all at once and not arbitrarily isolate them, which did not seem fair to the individuals or the company. When we know we have to take action, we want to do it immediately and not let things drag on forever,” Dorsey wrote in an internal memo to employees.
In last year’s earnings call, Block had said it would reduce its workforce from 13,000 in the third quarter of 2023 to an “absolute cap” of 12,000 by the end of this year. Cash App, a peer-to-peer payment service, has seen a significant drop in revenue, reports TechCrunch.
Meanwhile, its buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service Afterpay, which Block acquired in 2021 for $29 billion, has been posting serious losses. Square also faces competition on several fronts, including Fiserv’s Clover, Toast and Stripe.
Block reported revenue of $5.62 billion in Q3 2023 and a $44 million profit on its Bitcoin holdings.
In September of last year, Dorsey was appointed as the director and chairman of Block (formerly known as Square), which he founded in 2009. Dorsey’s title changed from “Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairperson” to “Block Head and Chairperson”, effective immediately.
“There will be no changes to Dorsey’s roles and responsibilities, and he will continue to serve as the company’s CEO,” Block said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In December 2021, Dorsey’s financial services company Square announced that it would change its name to Block.
