Block plans to cut 112 jobs on March 30 as part of its previously announced cost-cutting measures.
The company began job cuts in January and aims to reduce its workforce from over 13,000 to 12,000 by the end of 2024, Reuters reported Thursday (Feb. 22).
Block said in November that it aims to streamline operations and optimize efficiency in the face of market pressures, according to the report.
Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Block, announced the company’s plans for job cuts in a November letter to shareholders, saying: “We are creating an absolute cap on the number of people we have at the company, held firm at 12,000 people until we feel the growth of the business has meaningfully outpaced the growth of the company.”
The company’s latest move comes amidst economic uncertainty and high interest rates, with layoffs affecting various companies in the tech industry, including Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft, during the first two months of the year, the report said.
It was reported on Feb. 11 that 141 tech companies have cut a combined total of 34,000 jobs so far this year.
The cuts come as tech companies assess their staffing levels and conclude that “we’ve got a bunch of dead wood. And if we had a leaner organization we can do more,” Jeffries analyst Brent Thill told the Financial Times (FT) as part of the media outlet’s report on those numbers released by Layoffs.fyi.
Tech companies have been evaluating divisions where they want to prioritize investments and are cutting staff in costly, but not core, areas, Daniel Keum, associate professor of management at Columbia Business School, said in the FT report.
On the new product front, Block said in December that it launched its self-custody bitcoin wallet Bitkey in 95 countries, aiming to widen access to self-custody amid a resurgence in the price of bitcoin.
Bitkey doesn’t require users to remember long passwords or seed phrases. Rather, it uses three keys to secure bitcoin, with any two of them needed to move coins or approve other security-related functions. Two of those keys are in the hands of the customer: one in Block’s mobile app and the other in a hardware device.
Corporate delinquencies are reportedly at the highest rate they’ve reached in eight years.
The delinquency rate for loans from U.S. banks to both U.S. and foreign companies rose to 1.3% at the end of 2024, a figure that was the highest since the first quarter of 2017 but well below the 5% seen during the 2008 financial crisis, the Financial Times (FT) reported Monday (Feb. 17), citing data from BankRegData.
The total amount of bank debt on which U.S. business borrowers were at least one month late reached $28 billion, up $2.2 billion from three months earlier and up $5.4 billion from a year earlier, according to the report.
The report attributed the rise to interest rates that remain high, surprising some observers who expected them to fall this year. A pickup in inflation in January and concerns about the impact of President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs have delayed further interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, the report said.
Corporate bank loans tend to be variable rate, so the expected decline in interest rates would have given some relief to borrowers, the report said.
The data from BankRegData does not include loans from direct lenders and private credit funds, per the report.
It was reported in January that the growth in commercial bank loans was at the slowest it’s been since the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Commercial bank loans grew by around 2.7% in 2024, which was only somewhat faster than the 2.3% rise seen in 2023.
A number of bankers said they hoped to see loan growth later this year, citing optimism among clients and other indicators.
Bank of America said during a January earnings call that commercial loans were up 5% year over year in the fourth quarter and that loan and deposit growth in the current year should outpace last year’s.
J.P. Morgan Chase said during a January earnings call that there has been improvement in business sentiment and that balance sheets at small businesses are healthy.
Citi CEO Jane Fraser said during a January earnings call that in the United States, “growth is not only being driven by the higher-end consumer but also by a strong and innovative corporate sector.”