Unless you propose that there should be more corporations than people, I don't see how the number of companies significantly alters the power dynamics. We liter

Unless you propose that there should be more corporations than people, I don't see how the number of companies significantly alters the power dynamics. We literally have industries where the number of job openings vastly outnumber the available talent and instead of better working conditions or compensation or participation this only seems to result in those companies pushing for the softening of immigration laws and reducing protections. The only times we see workers gain leverage is when they are able to form unions and use collective bargaining to avoid being fired. Even for superstar individuals there are limits to what they can demand for themselves and even then it doesn't trickle down to the other employees. There's no market incentive for companies to "treat staff better" (which is really an oversimplification when it comes to basic things like following workplace safety laws, providing paid medical leave and health insurance, not cheap window dressing like foosball machines and free energy drinks) beyond the minimum you can get away with. Payroll is one of the biggest cost factors in most businesses if not the biggest. That means companies are always incentivized to cut labor costs where possible. This is why you say mass layoffs followed by share price increases. If you really want "the market" to fix this problem, ban individual ownership of corporations and require all businesses to act as worker cooperatives. This gives every worker equal power in whichever business they decide to join and gives the owners an incentive to treat workers better because the workers are the owners. You could also do this incrementally by offering public grants to creating cooperatives or turning existing corporations into cooperatives (e.g. by creating a subsidized program to allow workers to "buy out" a bankrupt employer). We don't want a top-down autocratic state so why should we accept a top-down autocratic corporation ruled by a single owner or a non-working board that is only interested in the resale value of the company, not its long-term profitability or sustainability?