(KRON) -- Block stock soared almost 24% in after-hours trading Thursday after the company's CEO Jack Dorsey announced the fintech company was laying off nearly half its staff. The massive layoffs, which Dorsey said were part of the company's pivot to artificial intelligence, followed by a stock mark et surge, are sounding alarm bells in the tech industry and beyond about AI's impacts. With 2026 already off to a flying start in terms of tech layoffs, seeing Block rewarded by the market for cutting 4,000 jobs is being seen by some as a potential bellwether of what's to come, especially when it comes to the impacts of AI. Hundreds to be laid off from Bay Area-based luxury EV maker "Block just cut 40% of its 10,000 workers, the highest percentage of layoffs in the history of the SP 500," tweeted former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. "This is a huge sign of what's to come." "Major companies are going to jettison workers on an unprecedented scale and be rewarded for it," added Yang, who made Universal Basic Income (UBI) and the threat AI posed to workers pillars of his failed 2019 presidential bid. "4,000 jobs cut out of 10,000 directly attributed to AI," Yang added in a subsequent tweet. "Universal Basic Income is inevitable.) "For years, we have debated whether AI would dent jobs at the margin. Now we have a public case study in which the CEO explicitly says that intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company," said Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management. "Other large employers have announced tens of thousands of cuts in recent months. Some have downplayed the AI link. Block did not." "A company with $24 billion in revenue and 24% gross profit growth just cut 4,000 people while raising 2026 guidance to $12.2 billion in gross profit. Stock ripped 20% after hours," tweeted tech blogger and podcaster Aakash Gupta. "Block is the canary in the coal mine. And they're not alone," he added. "Yeah it's over. You get a 20% stock price boost for laying off half your workforce. Labor doom loop incoming," tweeted another user. While 2026 has already seen thousands of job cuts in the tech industry -- many of them attributed to AI, the Block layoffs are eyebrow raising in light of their apparently direct positive impact on the company's stock. AI or bloat? However, not everyone is convinced the Block layoffs are the herald of an AI doom loop. Some pointed to layoffs at Dorsey's previous company, Twitter, as an indicator that Block may simply have been overstaffed. "Jack Dorsey isn't firing half his employees because of AI. He's firing half his employees because he builds bloated companies," tweeted YouTube Joe Carlson. "When Elon took over Twitter he fired 80% of the employees and that was before AI." "What we've really learned from the last five years is that Jack Dorsey runs extremely bloated companies," tweeted one user. "Elon fired 80% of Dorsey's last company before chatGPT was even out and it thrived. May be more of a bloat thing than an AI thing," added another. The layoffs at Block follow major recent job cuts at tech companies that include Amazon, Meta, Pinterest and Autodesk, among others. The Associated Press contributed to this report. ...read more read less