A layoff fundamentally changed how I perceive work

The thing that bothers me most about layoffs due to “financial difficulties” is when you observe management wasting absurd amounts of money on something in one year, then announcing the following year that they have to make cuts to baseline, “low level” employees that don’t cost much at all.

This kind of managerial behavior seriously kills employee motivation, because it both communicates that 1) no one has job security and 2) that management is apparently incapable of managing money responsibly.

“Sorry, we spent $200k on consultants and conferences that accomplished nothing, so now we have to cut an employee making $40k” really erodes morale in ways that merely firing people doesn’t.

That's because they have a budget which is planned ahead (e.g., 2024 for 2025) for everything.

Typically if the company is really in financial trouble, they will also NOT use the pre-allocated budget which was not yet spent (=200k for company events, although the budget for such things was planned and approved last year).

I have seen companies actually taking care of finances (both firing people AND blocking useless events) and I have seen companies doing what you said, which creates pure hatred.