Losing a job sucks, but as someone who's lived and worked on both sides of the Atlantic, I appreciate a lot of elements of American work setup that few dare acknowledge. Way more opportunities to get jobs in "risky" startups or "risky" expansions of bigger companies than the European companies that are forced to be more conservative about expansion due to their inability to contract. And less likely that your workday involves dealing with deadweight coworkers who are drawing your same salary despite not contributing, or dealing with overly risk-averse management who have an excessive bias towards the status quo.
Keep in mind the laid off folks are getting severance, will get unemployment payments after that runs out if they haven't started a new job, can choose between staying on their existing healthcare plan or switching to a new individual plan or switching to a partner's plan (and can do so retroactively- you're covered for free automatically for the month following layoff, if you need healthcare during that time you can choose to stay on the former employer plan even weeks afterwards). It's not like anyone is going to be homeless and hungry because they got laid off, they have months or years of support to find a new opportunity.
Why not? If a business is facing headwinds, should it be forced to pay all its salaries and put everyone at the enterprise at risk? What about the investors, which also include employee shareholders and pension funds?
The economy is large and there are lots of jobs. Unemployment is low. Companies are literally waging a Darwinian battle for survival. Why should they be artificially shackled to past business decisions?
Companies aren't feel good communities. They try to be, but the reality is that it is blood sport that temporarily makes people income and wealth. Employment at lower ranks shields you from the realities of the competition and market dynamics.
