Layoffs at Block add to growing backlash bubbling up across American companies.

“We are at a precipice right now that if you say to your employees there’s not gonna be any job disruption, I think you lose all credibility—because all of them get it that there’s going to be,” Verizon CEO Dan Schulman said earlier this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

For many white-collar workers, that moment arrived in force this past week, The Wall Street Journal reports.

When Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced that the financial-technology company would cut 4,000 jobs, or 40% of its workforce, Thursday, citing artificial intelligence as a major factor, the reaction was immediate and visceral.

Text chains among tech workers lit up. Executives at rival firms scrambled to interpret what it meant. Then the debate spilled into public view.

“Square is just the beginning,” former Meta and Salesforce executive Clara Shih warned on X.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy struck a sober note in a television interview Friday:

“A lot of the jobs that we’ve thrown human beings at the last 20 or 30 years — you won’t need as many human beings doing those same jobs,” he said, while adding that new roles would emerge.

Some observers blamed Block’s move on overhiring and strategic missteps. Others saw it as a signal flare—that more chief executives may soon use AI to justify deeper payroll cuts.

Even for those who suspected AI would eventually thin corporate ranks, the scale and bluntness of Block’s announcement felt different.

To many in the technology sector, it suggested that companies of the future could be far leaner—and that employees would absorb much of the shock.

“When things crystallize like this, it brings out the pitchforks and the torches,” said Marc Cenedella, CEO of the jobs platform Ladders. “People are angry at the destabilizing impact that AI is inevitably going to have on our economy and our work life.”

Public anxiety has been building for months.

A YouGov survey released in December found that 77% of respondents worry AI could pose a threat to humanity. Research from the Pew Research Center similarly shows more Americans feel concerned than excited about the technology.

Now, as layoffs mount and market volatility ripples through software stocks, insurers and even consumer apps, executives are speaking more candidly about the upheaval ahead.

Schulman has been among the most outspoken.

Since taking the helm at Verizon last fall, he has warned that AI could drive unemployment as high as 20% to 30% over the next two to five years. He has even suggested that humanoid robots could encroach on manual-labor jobs once considered insulated from automation. At the same time, he has called for large-scale reskilling to cushion the blow.

Despite his cautionary tone, Schulman remains an advocate for AI’s potential. The technology, he has said, could unlock breakthroughs in health care, materials science and longevity.

“Ideas are going to blossom, and maybe there’ll be a bunch of new jobs that happen as a result,” he said in January.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon echoed that duality this week.

“AI will create more productivity, but it could create other derivative effects,” Dimon told investors. “Laying those people off will cause a problem, even if it creates more productivity in society. That’s why society’s got to think this through a little bit. It may happen faster than we can adjust to it.”

On earnings calls, references to AI in the context of layoffs are becoming more common, according to AlphaSense, a financial-research platform. And companies are increasingly flagging AI not just as an opportunity—but as a risk.

The share of S&P 500 companies listing AI as a material risk in securities filings jumped to 72% last year, up from 12% in 2023, according to analysis by the Conference Board.