No, I actually do agree that lots of people are stuck in jobs they hate. The solution to that isn’t to cheer on layoffs. The solution is to establish a good so

No, I actually do agree that lots of people are stuck in jobs they hate. The solution to that isn’t to cheer on layoffs. The solution is to establish a good social safety net—especially when it comes to housing and healthcare—so people don’t have to either do a job they hate or die in the gutter. When you were laid off with lots of assistance, preserved insurance, compensation, etc. from your employer, you experienced what life is like with such a safety net. However, it was mostly provided by your employer as a perk rather than by society as a social good; the rules on what employers have to provide in the US at least are very lax. What’s maddening about opposition to providing this society-wide is that doing this would also reduce companies’ administrative overhead (HR costs would plummet without tying healthcare and retirement to employment), and would make it easier to entice good people away from their existing jobs by reducing risk. The simple fact is that the oligarchs running corporate America really want serfs, not free agents, and they’re the ones who fight doing this society-wide even though it costs them far more to do it the way it’s done now.