Jack Dorsey's fintech company Block to lay off 1,000 employees
Block is cutting around 1,000 jobs, primarily impacting Cash App, Square, and core teams, as per Business Insider. The fintech giant, co-founded and headed by Jack Dorsey, had announced last year that it seeks to reduce its workforce from 13,000 to about 12,000. Block's layoffs are part of a larger trend, as numerous tech companies have reduced their workforce in the past few weeks. As per Layoffs.fyi, over 100 tech companies have fired nearly 29,000 workers this January itself.
Dorsey's memo explains decision for mass layoff
In a memo to staff, Dorsey explained that Block is streamlining operations and chose to conduct layoffs at once to avoid dragging the process. "We decided it would be better to do [it] at once rather than arbitrarily space them out, which didn't seem fair to the individuals or to the company," wrote Dorsey. "When we know we need to take an action, we want to take it immediately, rather than let things linger on forever."
1,188 companies laid off 262,595 employees in 2023
The tech sector has seen a significant number of job cuts over the past year. As many as 1,188 companies laid off 262,595 employees in 2023, per Layoffs.fyi. The situation this year isn't any better. In January, Unity, Twitch, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, eBay, and Google have all announced layoffs. PayPal revealed plans today to dismiss around 2,500 workers while UPS has decided to slash 12,000 jobs. Block's announcement contributes to the growing list of tech firms downsizing their workforce.
