> did not have the balls to put you above their quarterly earnings report.
And why would they put me (not the OP, but it applies to me too) above their earnings? I don't put them above my salary. People talk about loyalty. I don't have loyalty. As long as I work for an employer, I will give my best. But I don't feel any sort of duty to stay with an employer forever, and certainly to stick with an employer if another one can offer me a better deal.
In my experience those who profess "loyalty" just can't get a job if they go on the job market. They stick with the current employer not out of a sense of loyalty, but just for a lack of alternatives.
Given that, why should I expect anything else in return? As long as my employer considers that I add value, they'll pay me. When I don't, they'll cut me. They are not the Red Cross, or Mother Theresa. It's not personal, it's just business.
Compassion, empathy, etc, should be the domain of charitable organizations, or of the government. Not of private enterprises.
Yet working fulltime is almost never just business. You have overworked because your boss begged you to, or because a colleague was drowning. You have made personal sacrifices to take an initiative to the finish line.
But even at the selfishness level, you go above and beyond because the company promised you that they will reward you at the end of it, either with promotion or compensation. And instead, they throw you away.
> businesses must treat people like people and not factory parts
And businesses are not treating them like factory parts. This round of layoffs is an exception. Such layoffs did not happen in the US since 2008-09. The young generation is unused to them, and so the shock and anger. But just the fact that industry-wide layoffs like that are so rare can show you that businesses actually try to avoid them. Not necessarily because they have a heart of gold, but there's a certain amount of friction in reducing your workforce.
And let's not ignore the fact that if you have family or even just rent obligations you cannot just pack-up overnight and move to wherever the opportunity lies.
You got laid off because the company did not have the balls to put you above their quarterly earnings report.
They even time your layoff to better please the hawks at Wall Street.