{"id":507123,"date":"2026-02-27T08:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T08:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/507123\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T08:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T08:08:13","slug":"hundreds-of-australians-potentially-impacted-after-tech-giant-block-axes-4000-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/507123\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of Australians potentially impacted after tech giant Block axes 4000 jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The parent company of Afterpay and Square has announced it has culled 4000 jobs<\/a> from its workforce around the world<\/a>, potentially impacting hundreds of Australia<\/a>Block, a US<\/a>-based company that also runs platforms such as Square and Cash App, made the announcement via their co-founder Jack Dorsey this morning, who claimed the changing role of AI<\/a> in the industry and not financial<\/a> struggles were the key motivator.”We’re not making this decision because we’re in trouble,” he said in a letter to staff, which was also shared on X<\/a>.\"JackJack Dorsey claimed it was better for company “morale” to do the job cuts at once, rather than stagger them out. (Getty)<\/p>\n

“But something has changed. 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 which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company.”<\/p>\n

Dorsey claimed he had two options, either to do the cuts gradually, or to do it all at once.<\/p>\n

“Repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. i’d [sic] rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome.”<\/p>\n

\"Afterpay\"\/Afterpay is one of the platforms owned by Block. (Louie Douvis)<\/p>\n

The company globally had 10,000 employees, but this number will now shrink to less than 6000, Dorsey said.<\/p>\n

Block has just over 1000 employees based in Australia, according to LinkedIn, but it is unclear how many Australian-based workers will be impacted by the cuts.<\/p>\n

When asked by Nine.com.au<\/a> how many Australians would be affected, a company spokesperson said it declined to break the news down by region and provided several statistics from the company’s latest financial results.<\/p>\n

Block also declined to say how many jobs would be culled, if any, from Afterpay.<\/p>\n

Afterpay was founded in Sydney in 2014 and has its main Australian office in Melbourne CBD.\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"SquareSquare manufactures many payment terminal systems that are used for tap and go card payments. (Square)<\/p>\n

Square was also contacted for comment on the extent of its job losses.<\/p>\n

Their main office is also in Melbourne CBD and they opened a Sydney office in Chippendale in 2024.<\/p>\n

The company is known for manufacturing tap and go payment terminals, which many smaller businesses use to process card payments, allowing them to accept payment by phone as well.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Block made a $10.36 billion gross profit in 2025, a 17 per cent growth year on year, according to its presentation to investors.<\/p>\n

More than $6 billion of this came from Cash App, with Square contributing to nearly $4 billion.<\/p>\n

Block’s job cull comes the same week Australian-based software company WiseTech announced<\/a> cuts of around 2000 people over the next two years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The parent company of Afterpay and Square has announced it has culled 4000 jobs from its workforce around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-507123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}