For hiring, I meant it in terms of a chilling effect in that companies will not hire as many people as they are much harder to fire.

You said "It is to make sure that the company has done its absolute best to find another solution to the problem," and I am asking, what solutions have unions "made sure" that the companies have done instead of layoffs? I am looking for concrete examples as I often hear this claim but I'm not sure what a union can do if the solution is layoffs, so my question is, what other solutions are there?

Then, I suggest that you educate yourself on how unions function and what they do. It's not my job to educate you. You can also ChatGPT this by the way.

I see, looks like you don't actually have any examples to give despite you yourself making such a claim, on a discussion forum and thread to discuss a topic, so lead with that next time, because that's all that the phrase "It's not my job to educate you" means.