Block Inc., the parent company of Square, Cash App and Afterpay, has quietly rehired a small number of employees who were laid off in late February as the company shifts more work toward artificial intelligence.
Several former staff posted on LinkedIn in early March that they had been offered roles back after being among roughly 4,000 workers affected by the restructuring. Design engineer Andrew Harvard said on March 3 that he returned after being told his layoff was a clerical error. Technical lead Richard Hesse said on March 8 that he spent two days persuading management to restore personnel for infrastructure he described as critical to customers, and that some teammates were subsequently rehired. Creative strategy lead Chane Rennie said on March 12 he was asked to rejoin about a week after his layoff.
Cointelegraph contacted Block for details about who was rehired but did not receive an immediate response.
When announcing the cuts, CEO Jack Dorsey acknowledged the company may have erred in some selections and said Block had built in flexibility to correct course. He has argued that advances in AI tools fundamentally change how companies are built and run, a rationale cited in the companywide restructuring of an approximately 6,000-person workforce. Some former employees disagreed with the premise that AI can replace workers at scale, and others suggested the reductions were intended to shore up investor confidence after Block shares fell earlier in the year.
Block still lists openings on its careers site, roughly 27 positions at the time of reporting, mainly for manager and account executive roles; those postings do not explicitly reference AI. The company continues to operate Bitcoin and other crypto-related services through Square and Cash App.
The rehiring news arrives amid wider industry moves: the Algorand Foundation said it cut about 25 percent of its staff citing a crypto slump and macroeconomic uncertainty, and analytics firm Messari announced layoffs as it repositions toward becoming an AI-first company.
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