The parent company of ‘buy-now-pay-later’ giant Afterpay has sacked half of its Australian staff just two days after taking them on a boujee company retreat, which one worker had just lauded as showing ‘the culture was better than ever’.
Around 200 staff had just returned from a trip in Lorne, located on Victoria’s spectacular Great Ocean Road, on Friday when they learned of the news via Block chief executive Jack Dorsey‘s 628-word statement on X.
Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter and has become one of the tech industry’s highest-profile billionaires, said he had decided to cut his 10,000 staff by 40 per cent due to artificial intelligence.
‘Gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed,’ he posted on X.
‘We’re already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working.’
Almost half of the Australian workforce has been culled, including entire teams within its communications, legal, design, marketing, product and engineering departments, the Australian Financial Review reported.
The marketing team had already experienced a 60 per cent mass redundancy in 2024.Â
The only Australian department not impacted directly by the cuts is the sales team.
Almost half of Afterpay’s Australian workforce learned they’d been axed on Friday
Chief executive of parent company ‘Block’, Jack Dorsey, announced the news via X on Friday
Block’s severance packages for Australian workers include 20 weeks’ pay plus one additional week per year served, all equity vested until the end of May, and six months of healthcare.
They will also receive around $7,030 cash and be allowed to keep their company laptop.
Those who remain at the company have been promised a 5.68 per cent pay increase and around $30,000 in cash and shares.
Block, which paid over $39 billion to acquire Afterpay in 2022, declined to confirm how many people had been axed.Â
The shock redundancy round comes just two months after Block spent nearly $96million flying 1,300 Afterpay Australia staff, and the rest of its global workforce, to California for a lavish company retreat at the Oakland Arena & Coliseum.
The three-day festivities included performances from DJs and rappers like T-Pain and Anderson Paak, free-flowing alcohol, and a fireside chat with Jay-Z.Â
An Afterpay employee who was let go in the latest mass redundancy round said it ‘feels scary right now’, but incredibly, he still supports Dorsey’s vision.
‘If you’re finishing this journey with Block/Afterpay soon, it’s the unknown for a bit. But a year from now you’ll be somewhere new, and grateful that life handed you a new set of cards,’ he said in a post seen by the Daily Mail.
The company had just splashed out nearly $96 million on a Californian retreat for 8,000 staff
The festivities also included a chat with rapper and Block director Jay ZÂ
‘If you’re staying, enjoy the ride. It’s an awesome company with so much to offer the world. I wholeheartedly believe in Jack’s vision for creating more economic empowerment for people who might otherwise get left behind.’
Block recently increased its profit before tax by 17 per cent to more than $14 billion.
It comes as several companies announced cuts to its Australian workforces last week ahead of artificial intelligence productivity gains.
WiseTech CEO Zubin Appoo revealed on Wednesday an ‘AI transformation program’ would result in about 2,000 jobs getting the axe this year.
Mr Appoo said it would be a ‘phased headcount reduction, initially in product and development and customer service, by up to 50 per cent’.
He claimed the AI program would make the company more efficient.
Commonwealth Bank also confirmed their plan to lay off 300 Australians, despite recording a $5 billion profit just weeks ago.