This isn’t my opinion, this is what the research shows. An article by the Verge/Standford and others show that layoffs are happening because of “social contagion”.
What this means is that companies are copying other companies’ behavior. In fact, there is research that shows that there are negative consequences to both the companies and the workers by this layoff behavior.
I think the result of these mass layoffs will be a surge in the future of regulation of the worker/employee relationship. When businesses abused workers in the past, regulations were created like OSHA and others to protect workers. Now that there are real social costs to this behavior, I have no doubt that laws in the future will change this.
This means that every company that needlessly laid workers off, is now a company to avoid. Not only avoid working for, but avoid doing business with. There is plenty of great companies that care about the worker and are prosocial and we no longer have the requirement that we are forced by our geography to make choices.
I grew up in a small town and we had limited opportunities to shop. Now with the internet, we can buy things worldwide, so we have a choice of how we invest our money. If you support companies that don’t care about workers, you are choosing to make others suffer and yourself. Do you think that companies that don’t respect their workers, respect their customers? I assure you they do not.
Most companies make decisions on the basis of anything other than facts, logic, and well being of society. Support people who care about others and you help make the world a better place.