The parent company of Afterpay and Square, Block, has announced it will cut 4,000 jobs globally, potentially affecting hundreds of employees in Australia.
The US-based company, which also operates Cash App, made the announcement via co-founder Jack Dorsey this morning. Dorsey stated that the decision was driven by the changing role of AI in the industry rather than financial difficulties.
“We’re not making this decision because we’re in trouble,” Dorsey wrote in a letter to staff shared on X. He explained that the intelligence tools being developed, combined with smaller, flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working that fundamentally changes how the company operates.
Dorsey added that he considered two approaches: implementing the cuts gradually or making a single, decisive reduction. “Repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, focus, and trust. I’d rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in,” he said.
Block’s global workforce of 10,000 employees will shrink to fewer than 6,000 following the layoffs. The company has just over 1,000 employees in Australia, but it has not confirmed how many will be impacted. Block also declined to specify how the cuts would affect Afterpay staff.
Afterpay, founded in Sydney in 2014, has its main Australian office in Melbourne CBD, while Square’s Australian offices are in Melbourne CBD and a Sydney office in Chippendale, opened in 2024. Square manufactures tap-and-go payment terminals widely used by small businesses to accept card and mobile payments.
In 2025, Block reported a gross profit of $10.36 billion, a 17% increase from the previous year, with over $6 billion coming from Cash App and nearly $4 billion from Square.
The announcement of Block’s job cuts comes the same week that Australian-based software company WiseTech revealed plans to reduce its workforce by around 2,000 employees over the next two years.
