I guess there are a broad range of perspectives and how loud people are is going to depend on their perspectives. Some reasons to dislike layoffs:
- visas may be dependent on employment, and can make changing jobs harder. In the United States, lots of visa rules are at the discretion of the government (eg how long one may live in the United States on an employer-sponsored visa while unemployed)
- the recent (and dot-com era) tech layoffs have been cyclical: many companies are in layoff-mode or hiring-spree mode at the same time. The time when many companies are not hiring is the worst time to be thrust into the job market
- people may have other job security worries – big tech companies tend to always be growing so it is worrying if they are laying people off instead of moving them from a failing business line to a new one
- in general some people may have a lot of anxiety about changes to income. If you are applying for new jobs while currently holding another, there is much less pressure than if you’re unemployed and need to find a new job (and possibly at a pay cut requiring outgoings to be reduced) before you run out of savings, especially if you don’t have much in savings compared to outgoings, which may be the case for some tech workers (some people spend a lot, or have much of their wealth tied up in property or have a family which requires spending more on eg housing or school fees). The much-worse consequences of failing to get a new job may increase the pressure/stress/discomfort
- this reveals an obvious truth about where the power lies in ‘engineering-focused’ companies and people don’t like it
- people can see a layoff as being like a firing and therefore be unhappy due to hurt pride (or worries about being less desirable in the job market)
- the lack of agency in a layoff is unpleasant. It is quite different from choosing to apply to other jobs.
- visas may be dependent on employment, and can make changing jobs harder. In the United States, lots of visa rules are at the discretion of the government (eg how long one may live in the United States on an employer-sponsored visa while unemployed)
- the recent (and dot-com era) tech layoffs have been cyclical: many companies are in layoff-mode or hiring-spree mode at the same time. The time when many companies are not hiring is the worst time to be thrust into the job market
- people may have other job security worries – big tech companies tend to always be growing so it is worrying if they are laying people off instead of moving them from a failing business line to a new one
- in general some people may have a lot of anxiety about changes to income. If you are applying for new jobs while currently holding another, there is much less pressure than if you’re unemployed and need to find a new job (and possibly at a pay cut requiring outgoings to be reduced) before you run out of savings, especially if you don’t have much in savings compared to outgoings, which may be the case for some tech workers (some people spend a lot, or have much of their wealth tied up in property or have a family which requires spending more on eg housing or school fees). The much-worse consequences of failing to get a new job may increase the pressure/stress/discomfort
- this reveals an obvious truth about where the power lies in ‘engineering-focused’ companies and people don’t like it
- people can see a layoff as being like a firing and therefore be unhappy due to hurt pride (or worries about being less desirable in the job market)
- the lack of agency in a layoff is unpleasant. It is quite different from choosing to apply to other jobs.