I think they just explained it in their comment… your coworkers are your friends.
I think the flip side of what you’re saying is, why would you not want to be friends with the people you spend 8+ hours a day with during the workweek?
And if you get fired, you get fired from being friends with them too?
I certainly want to be able to get along with my coworkers, but it's not quite the same thing as being friends. There are few former coworkers that I keep in touch with after I leave a job. I tend to have my friends outside work. And my family too.
I mean I am an American, and I live my life in accordance with American norms.
I just am pointing out how cultural differences lead to different perspectives. I would imagine that Chinese corporate culture around layoffs is also very different from how it is in America.
It’s really difficult to comprehend all of the small details that go into living within a different culture, and isolated components end up seeming bizarre, while they are perfectly logical when you live within the system itself.
Is this question more than rhetorical? Because the answer is non-obvious to a Westerner like me.
Surely there exists a scenario where the company tells an employee "we no longer want you to do anything for us, we will no longer pay you, and you will no longer have access to the building", in that scenario it does sound like they're losing a large part of the people in their life?
I think at this point in the thread, most of us are just outsiders speculating.
To add my bit: given the growth rate of the Chinese economy over the last several decades, it’s highly likely that American style layoffs are exceedingly uncommon in China, to the point where the fear that you may lose your job and thus your whole social life is much less of a fear, at least to the extent that it is perceived as beyond your own control.
