n Tuesday, it was reported that Fintech Block has laid off 931 people, meaning roughly 8% of the company’s staff. The news was leaked from a
company’s message and was later exposed by TechCrunch.
The news was announced to the staff in an email that came from Block’s co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey. In the message, Dorsey wrote that Block will be “making some org changes, including eliminating roles and beginning the consultation process in countries where required.”.
It is also worth mentioning that Block is the financial service giant that owns Cash App and Square. Block is the provider of mobile payments services for customers as well as point-of-sale hardware and software for businesses.
Even more so, in the email, Dorsey explained in the email sent for its employees that Block is cutting roles across three broad buckets. The first he mentioned is 391 people being cut for “strategy” motivation.
The largest category contains 460 people and is due to “performance” reasons, with Dorsey explaining that Block is laying off employees who score a “below” average rating on the company’s international performance tracking metrics, or who are trending towards it
The last bucket is formed out of managers, 80 of whom are being cut in order to flatten Block’s hierarchy to “innercore+4,” referring to Dorsey’s direct reports, and then four levels of direct reports beyond that. Even more so, Dorsey also mentioned that 193 managers are being moved to individual contributor roles.
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Dorsey’s email also denies that the layoffs are due to financial reasons and to replace workers with AI. Rather, he said that Block is cutting the roles owing to shifting strategic needs while “raising the bar and acting faster on performance.”
It was also mentioned by Dorsey that Block is closing 748 open roles at the company with the exception of those that have reached an offer stage, critical operations roles, and key leadership roles.
The email sent by Dorcey also mentioned its reasoning, writing, “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.”
