Alphabet. Salesforce. Microsoft. IBM. Zoom. Meta Platforms. Amazon. The list goes on. More than 300,000 people laid off just in technology, just in the past year, and the number keeps growing—Disney, Goldman Sachs, Philips, Boeing, Meta (again), Amazon (again), even McKinsey. Seems like everyone is joining the layoff bandwagon.
Many, indeed virtually all, of the companies that have announced layoffs are still making money and have strong balance sheets. They may be doing layoffs in anticipation of economic hard times to maintain their profit margins. But few if any are on the verge of going out of business. In that sense, their layoffs are discretionary choices.
Weren’t some of these the same companies that less than two years ago were paying search firms and giving employees bonuses to add staff? Of course. Companies seem to have perfected the art of buying high—hiring in the middle of booms—and selling low—doing layoffs when the economy seems to be shrinking. None of this makes sense. So how to explain this madness?