Jack Dorsey’s Block Rehires Some Staff Laid Off in February

Block Inc., the firm behind payment platforms Square, Cash App and Afterpay, has quietly brought back a small portion of workers it laid off in late February with its transition to rely more on artificial intelligence.

Multiple Block employees posted on LinkedIn this month that they were offered a place to return to the company after initially being part of the 4,000 employees who were fired.

Design engineer Andrew Harvard said on March 3 that he rejoined after being told that his layoff was due to a clerical error. “They offered me the opportunity to return, and I’ve accepted,” he added.

On March 8, technical lead Richard Hesse said he was the only member of his team who wasn’t impacted by the staff cut and that he spent two days convincing management that he needed more staff to continue working on “infrastructure highly critical to our customers.”

“I’m happy to share that they listened to my requests and have decided to re-hire some of those laid off,” he said. “While my teams were not returned to full levels, I’ll have enough to continue on.”

Chane Rennie, creative strategy lead, said on March 12 that he was asked to rejoin the company about a week after being laid off, but did not explain why.

Cointelegraph contacted Block on what staff were rehired, but did not receive an immediate response.

Block CEO Jack Dorsey acknowledged at the time of the layoffs that Block may have made some missteps in its staff cut decisions and had built in flexibility to correct course.