> Layoffs often do not cut costs I guess you can put "often" in front of any statement and be not wrong. But obviously letting go expensive workers is going to

> Layoffs often do not cut costs I guess you can put "often" in front of any statement and be not wrong. But obviously letting go expensive workers is going to reduce costs. > Layoffs often do not increase stock prices They've pretty reliably bumped stock prices this past year, and by quite a lot. Not that I think this is what a CEO should be optimizing for, since short term price action is not that important, but since he brought it up... > Layoffs do not increase productivity They definitely increase productivity if they're targeted at the lowest performers --- unless you somehow think all employees are the same, which sounds like an MBA type of opinion to have > Companies sometimes lay off people that they have just recruited That doesn't seem to be the case with the recent tech layoffs (to the extent that I have knowledge). The folks I have seen laid off were not ones hired since 2020, rather those that have been around longer and should have been let go earlier. > Layoffs kill people * There's a long chain of events that lead to a layoff * There are many people who are laid off and don't kill themselves So how can you say that a layoff was THE cause that killed a person, rather than, say, a series of poor choices by politicians and public-sector economists, or the medical community failing to diagnose a chemical imbalance, etc etc. Is there an A/B test that shows that when a company doesn't do any layoffs and instead goes bankrupt and everyone loses their job that everyone stays happy and healthy? > how economic insecurity is bad for people Make recessions illegal! Stocks only go up! Literally nothing this professor says is convincing. Tech workers and all people should take steps to become financially literate, plan ahead for an unexpected termination, maintain a broadly diversified investment portfolio, and take responsibility for their own mental health.