The stock buy-back really exposes the game though... for $20bn they could retained their employees for another <5 years and just waited for the economic climate to change a bit... it's unlikely to take more than 18mo.

Whilst there's good arguments to be made about workforce planning during recessions, and how you need to not have "slack employees" doing nothing... there are similar arguments to be made about stock buy-backs (ie., that having 40bn in reserves is a massive economic cushion).

That they choose to weaken their cash position for the sake of a temporary boost to stock prices shows that their incentives arent well-aligned to most stakeholders in this.