As much sympathy as I have for the human side of layoffs that are called out here, I feel the researcher is not being intellectually honest. This paragraph is

As much sympathy as I have for the human side of layoffs that are called out here, I feel the researcher is not being intellectually honest. This paragraph is the worst offender: > Layoffs often do not cut costs, as there are many instances of laid-off employees being hired back as contractors, with companies paying the contracting firm. Layoffs often do not increase stock prices, in part because layoffs can signal that a company is having difficulty. Layoffs do not increase productivity. Layoffs do not solve what is often the underlying problem, which is often an ineffective strategy, a loss of market share, or too little revenue. Layoffs are basically a bad decision. First of all, if your strongest argument that layoffs do not cut costs is that sometimes companies hire them back as contractors, then I don't think you have a leg to stand on, because that's not really a layoff! In this case, "layoffs" is just a smokescreen to reclassify workers. Pointing out that layoffs don't solve ineffective strategy, loss of marketshare or too little revenue is a facile argument at best. Yes, trivially, getting rid of people does not solve your business strategy problems. But at the same time, there may be no solution. The world may simply be moving on from what your company has to offer. Bringing in the MBAs to try and force the issue can have a lot of ugly outcomes that go well beyond layoffs. At the end of the day, businesses ebb and flow, and they can only support a certain size of headcount based on the economic environment in which they operate. It would be nice if leadership had the clairvoyance to always avoid overhiring and give ironclad promises on perpetual employment, but such is not the world we live in. Coming with an absolutist position that layoffs are universally bad, backed by a bunch of flimsy strawman arguments, is not very helpful for people that actually have to make these decisions. Seems more like pandering to a generation that has never known a bear market.