Artificial intelligence is already disrupting the job market, particularly in the tech world. Jack Dorsey announced the firing of over 4,000 employees within his company Block, the parent company of Square and Cash App. This blunt cut reduces the workforce to just under 6,000 people.

The most shocking part of this announcement remains the reason given by the American billionaire.

Human replaced by algorithm

The company is not going through any financial crisis at all. The leader even states that gross profits continue to rise and that profitability is strongly improving. This massive layoff plan is solely explained by the frantic integration of new artificial intelligence tools. In his open letter, published on the social network X (formerly Twitter), Jack Dorsey uses very strong words. « AI tools have changed what it means to build and lead a company », he writes to justify his decision. He then fully assumes this restructuring by stating that « a significantly smaller team, using the tools we build, can do more and do it better ». He also warns that the capabilities of these tools are multiplying faster every week.

we’re making @blocks smaller today. here’s my note to the company.

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today we’re making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we’re reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are…

— jack (@jack) February 26, 2026

A chilling prophecy for the labor market

The founder of Block also anticipates a feared domino effect across the entire Silicon Valley. « I think most companies are behind », says the leader. He then issues a particularly alarming warning to all workers: « Within a year, I think most companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes ». The American billionaire finally justifies the brutality of his decision by a desire to anticipate: « I would rather arrive there honestly and on our own terms rather than be forced to do so reactively ».

This alarmist vision perfectly aligns with the predictions of other industry giants. Recently, Microsoft's AI leader announced the automation of numerous intellectual tasks within eighteen months. The threat looms over all white-collar jobs and no longer spares anyone at the top of the hierarchy. Even the creator of ChatGPT is horrified to realize that a superintelligence would make a far better CEO than him. The arrival of highly powerful professional tools, such as the recent Claude model from Anthropic capable of excelling in human resources, makes this shift particularly credible.

A brutal return to pre-pandemic staffing levels

This restructuring also masks a more global economic reality. During the years of the health crisis, tech giants had massively recruited to meet the surge in online demand. At the end of 2019, Block had only 3,835 employees before its workforce swelled to over 10,000 last year. Meta had also doubled its workforce in two years before cutting staff.

The internal announcement of this restructuring actually turned into a human disaster. During the video conference bringing together all employees, Jack Dorsey appeared on camera wearing a black hat adorned with the word LOVE. This outfit was perceived as the ultimate provocation by the employees. One employee even confronted his boss live, asking him if this piece of clothing was really appropriate to put half the company out of work.

Paradoxically, this social drama literally enchanted the financial markets. Wall Street welcomed this aggressive shift toward automation by causing the company's stock price to jump over twenty-four percent after the market closed.

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Source : CNN