Again you’re ignore the root cause for the proximate cause. A companies looks after their employees when they are forced to do so by market forces, unions, laws etc. None of which applied here.

> The company needs to lower costs, and do some layoffs, in order to make it more profitable.

That doesn’t explain timing as companies always want to be more profitable. So what prevented those cuts from happening sooner.

Thus the CEO’s decision to shaft these people is the result of those employees lack of economic, political etc power. If everyone would say quit for a better offer then he wouldn’t make that decision and thus wouldn’t get rewarded for the decision.