The OC's perspective (that's me) is that there's a massive power asymmetry between the employed and employer. An employee can (typically) only work for one company at a time whereas an employer typically has many employees. The cost for an employee being terminated represents an immediate financial hazard for the employee; when an employee quits then the employer can absorb that shock more easily by distributing outstanding work between remaining employees.
When an employee quits for a new job, that's a speed bump for the employer; when the employer lays someone off, that's life changing for the employee. Employees have many fewer protections than do corporations so layoffs should be done with caution and the cost of layoffs should absolutely be shared with leadership.
> In reality, being laid off is a return to stasis.
Not even close, my dude. Being laid off starts a timer for when that person's finances run out. If that person is, let's say, badly burned out from a months-long crunch period then good luck getting a job. Being laid off is deeply disruptive; if you don't believe me then try it out for yourself sometime.
And going back to the original discussion of the CEO getting a payout as a result of layoffs, that represents leadership financially benefiting at the expensive of the laid off employees. Layoffs indicate a failure of leadership to grow and plan accordingly and leadership should be sharing in the pain rather than cashing in.
Productive, healthy societies survive and thrive when members of that society can afford to take risks can tolerate shocks, and aren't destroyed when they're unable to work. Systems like social security allow elderly people to retire which frees up other productive workers to have careers rather than be caretakers. Systems like unemployment benefits give people time to reorient after a layoff and search for a career where they can be more productive rather than having to reach for the first job that they can find.
These systems are paid for by redistributing income, either temporally with things like employment taxes, or along the income spectrum via progressive taxes. The case of a CEO financially benefiting from layoffs is the exact opposite of this pattern - extracting stock gains from the financial deprivation of employees.
I'm not arguing that we should redistribute all income and it shouldn't be possible to get rich, but I am arguing that we should, shall we say, have a little fucking empathy for people that have been disadvantaged and attempt to support them rather than celebrating the active progression of income inequality.
Edit: typo fixes and a minor clarification.