Financial anxiety: Media - the primary instigator It's one thing to feel financially tight. It's another thing to have endless news articles and publications and posts warning of how bad the global economy is and how inflation is running out of control. Not only does this constant negative message directly cause stress on the viewers, but it can cause fear in business which can lead to "precautionary" retractions...…
Laying off then hiring should be a positive. Presumably the laid-off were your worst talent and workers, while the new hires are at least randomly distributed and should be selected towards the upper end of the talent range.
Unless you managed to somehow change the intellectual characteristics of the labor pool in the span of less than a year, this is impossible on an industry-wide basis. At best, one company gains and another loses, but even if it evens out, the deadweight loss of unemployment payouts, time spent applying and interviewing, onboarding and offboarding, relationship upheavals, all make this a net negative activity socially.