Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Company A is going to get rid of 28,000 employees, while Company B is instead going to cut CEO compensation by 40%? How can you be sure whether you're joining Alphabet or Apple? As a recently ex-alphabet employee: apple never went on a hiring spree. They had restraint the last few years, with a significantly smaller workforce, and the result is (hopefully) no layoffs. Fast money moves quickly and it might move away…
I'm sorry for you losing your job, since it sounds like it wasn't voluntary. I understand why Apple hasn't done mass layoffs, but I'm still stuck on how you know that during the recruiting process. If Apple tries to hire you in January 2020, how do you know they are going to be more circumspect about hiring over the next three years? Apple hired a large number of people during the last three years, just as Google did…
You can't truly know. But you can vaguely see how many employees there are from news/earnings reports/etc. There's a lot of data in the moment, but you can never know how to process it until after-the-fact.
That said, it may not matter. Like you said, you can't blame anyone for taking a job, and they pay well, and part of that money is "boom/bust" cycles. Its part of the industry IMO.