That's a broad brush to paint with; companies are just a group of people, not some inhuman construct. People make the decisions and just like every other aspect of life, some people care don't put their impact on others first, or can't because of circumstances. Not every company discards employees like garbage, and it's a lousy narrative to propagate.
Depending on which industry you are in or nations. But generally speaking there are less than 10% chance of this so call Good company, so I argue this is not a broad brush at all.
IBM, Oracle, Apple, Microsoft, you name it. All of those have done large cycles of layoffs.
And the coding industry is infamous for its Ageism.
Unless you have a contract with a golden parachute, anything could happen in a moments notice. Very few people outside of senior management have such parachutes, and even then not all of them negotiated for a good one.
If nothing else, keep your resume and linkedin up to date.
Since you can’t know that these possibilities won’t occur it’s best to keep the mindset that the company is not your friend. They do not have loyalty to you in perpetuity. It’s a business and not a person. It’s run by people but the more people it is being run by the easier it is for them emotionally to treat everything in business terms.
Do not have loyalty to a company. It’s just business and not personal.
Companies are a group of people hired to make money for shareholders. They owe loyalty to shareholders, not their workers. It's actually the fiduciary duty of the board and the execs.
> Not every company discards employees like garbage, and it's a lousy narrative to propagate.
Of course not. But the point is they will if they have to.
Companies exist to generate value for shareholders. Not to be nice to their workers. When times are good, you have nothing to worry about. But when things get tough, all bets are off.