The uncertainty will cause a lot of stress. As a red badge at Cisco some years back, layoff talks used to cause me serious anxiety, even though my parent company would just move me to another project.
The bigger problem with Cisco is that people speculate about layoffs and there are continual leaks. This really upsets employees, and causes considerable emotional pain for them.
Redundancies are absolutely best done as one-and-done.
Also, would this be a record number of staff laid off in one go 'by choice'? 14,000 is huge. Poor guys.
I was next.
Got fired at end of financial year, along with a couple thousand others. Had a new job before the day was out (another result of said anxiety).
Being laid off is termination without cause. You're just being let go as part of a workforce reduction.
Being fired because you are performing poorly in your job is, crazily enough, not "fired for cause" but simply "fired".
Being fired "for cause" usually makes one ineligible for unemployment income.
Being one of 14,000 employees let go because they chose to eliminate that entire half of the company doesn't necessarily mean anything. Being one of four engineers chosen to be let go from a team of 20 can say something about your skill level.