Google is a money printing machine having net annual income of ~$60B? It's profit per employee is utterly insane. Yet despite that there was a "need" for layoffs.
You'll find no shortage of defenders for the layoffs. Talk of cutting "the fat". Tell me: who decides what most of these people work on? Is it the individual? Or leadership? How amny executive leaders have gone as a result of need for belt-tightening? And whatever you think of Sunday (personally: not a lot), what makes this one man worth $226M/year? Sending out the traditional "thoughts and prayers" and "full responsibility" email seems to have not hurt him in the slightest.
These layoffs are nothin gmore than an attack on labor costs. It makes the remaining employees work harder (fearing further layoffs) as job functions of those eliminated are added to them rather than backfilled, less likely to ask for or get raises and it will make hiring cheaper as there is more avilable labor.
Just like the Steve Jobs anti-poaching collusion, this is a coordinated effort. Despite efforts to appear otherwise, these tech companies aren't on your side. They're on the shareholders side. You are simply an unfortunate line item under "expenses". So at least people are learning the lesson that they are completely expendable and there is no loyalty so absolutely no loyalty should be given to the company. Loyalty has to be reciprocal.
It actually doesn't have to be this way [1]. Additionally, layoffs tend to be traumatic for both the people affected and those that remain. Cost savings are overstated once you factor in severance packages, possible litigation, psychic damage to remaining employees and the cultural loss of trust from the "distraction".
Any genuine need to reduce costs could be better handled by across the board pay cuts.
[1]: https://www.polygon.com/2013/7/5/4496512/why-nintendos-sator...