Something not directly mentioned in the article is how every layoff will create a huge social network of people who can refer you to their new employer. Just a

Something not directly mentioned in the article is how every layoff will create a huge social network of people who can refer you to their new employer. Just about every person who got laid off will find another job of some kind, and if they liked working with you, they'll help get you in and give you a leg up compared to other candidates. Referrals are the top source for new hires: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/employee-referrals-remains-top-source-hires.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acqu... Perhaps the criticism I'd give to the article is that many of the things that "can't be put on a spreadsheet" actually can be put on a spreadsheet. A lot of employee feelings can be gathered from surveys and put into spreadsheets or metrics. I don't really think that this "spreadsheet mentality" is necessarily doing what the author is accusing it of doing. For a lot of businesses, the reality may be that having the most innovative, most happy workforce doesn't do enough to affect the one spreadsheet that matters, which is the balance sheet. Let's say I laid off 100 people out of my 1000 person workforce. The median salary is $100,000. So, I just saved $10 million in payroll. Maybe those 100 people attract another 100 people to defect to other companies, which might be a good thing, since those are going to be my most disgruntled 100 employees no longer poisoning the well. So now I've got to go out and hire some new people. These new people won't have any negative history or built-up animosity with my company. This process might have some turmoil, but I've still saved $10 million in payroll, so my costs I've incurred to do some re-hiring and to account for my potentially slowed down pace of innovation have to exceed $10 million for this to be a bad deal. I can even lose some customer revenue and come out ahead. Have you ever dropped a vendor solely because they had a layoff? If my little made-up story is anywhere close to the truth, it probably shows you why we have the current work culture where employees basically need to switch jobs within 5 years to stay happy and well-compensated.