Block, Inc., the company behind Square, Cash App, and Afterpay, has quietly rehired some of the thousands of employees it laid off in late February as it shifts toward greater reliance on artificial intelligence.
Several current and former employees shared on LinkedIn this month that they were invited back after being among the roughly 4,000 workers initially let go.
Design engineer Andrew Harvard posted on March 3 that he had returned after being informed his layoff resulted from a clerical error. “They offered me the opportunity to come back, and I accepted,” he said.
On March 8, technical lead Richard Hesse noted that he was the only member of his team not affected by the layoffs. He spent two days urging management to restore staff needed to support “infrastructure highly critical to our customers.”
“I’m glad they took my concerns seriously and chose to rehire some of those who were laid off,” he said, adding that while his team wasn’t fully restored, it now has enough personnel to continue its work.
Chane Rennie, a creative strategy lead, said on March 12 that he was invited to return to Block, Inc. roughly a week after being laid off, though he did not provide a reason for the reversal.
Cointelegraph reached out to Block for details on which employees were rehired but did not receive an immediate response.
At the time of the layoffs, CEO Jack Dorsey acknowledged that the company may have made some missteps in its workforce reductions and said there was flexibility to make adjustments. He explained that rapid advances in AI tools had prompted Block to restructure its workforce of about 6,000 employees, adding that AI is “fundamentally changing what it means to build and run a company.”
However, reporting from The Guardian noted that some former employees disputed Dorsey’s claims that AI could replace workers at scale. Several suggested the layoffs were aimed at restoring investor confidence, with Block’s shares already down by double digits this year.
Block, which offers Bitcoin and crypto-related services through Square and Cash App, currently lists 27 open roles on its website. The available positions are primarily for managers or account executives, and none explicitly reference AI in their job descriptions.
Meanwhile, the Algorand Foundation, which supports the Algorand layer-1 blockchain, announced it had cut 25% of its workforce, citing the ongoing crypto downturn and broader macroeconomic uncertainty.
Similarly, Messari revealed earlier this week that it is reducing staff as part of a shift toward becoming an AI-first company.
