Your comment isn't aligned with reality on many fronts. Take it from someone who had to pay for employee salaries using credit cards and a second mortgage on my home back in 2008/9 just to keep them employed as long as possible while searching for solutions.

That is not how business works. Mangers don't have crystal balls. On the other hand, if they did, and saw the massive 2008 economic downturn, it's likely people would have been laid off en-masse months before they did. Good management doesn't mean you see every single approaching storm. And, no, corporations are not evil or greedy.

Shit happens and you deal with it as best you can. Most people think large companies have more wiggle room but that is generally not true at all. Their mass and scale can be very damaging.

I remember talking to one of our automation (as in hardware, not software) suppliers back in 2009. Their orders went from 1,200 machines per month to 200. And this happened, quite literally, over one or two quarters.

When you have an infrastructure built-up over time to service a certain level of business and, overnight, almost without warning, your business gets cut down to one sixth of it's prior size, well, things have to change and they have to change very quickly.

The options are: Drain the company of all cash, everyone loses their jobs and the company goes out of business. Or, lay-off a sizable portion of your workforce, sell off assets, restructure and generally do anything you can to stay alive, remain viable and see daylight on the other side of the singularity that tried to kill you.

I am looking for numbers.

  - Product retail price
  - Materials costs
  - Sub-assembly costs
  - Labor costs
  - Spoilage
  - Operating costs
  - Variable costs related to that product or product line
  - Inventory levels
  - Distribution pipeline details
  - Transporation costs
  - Cost of distribution
  - Insurance
  - Legal costs
  - Other regulatory costs
  - Marketing costs
  - Support costs
  - Costs incurred due to exchange rate fluctuations

You might just be surprised by what you learn through this simple exercise.

It's not really managements fault that we have a boom-bust economy.

And... I think most people prefer a little collective belt tightening and to the risk of losing their livelihood.