This Article like much of the commentary around the current recession leaves the CEOs here mostly blameless in a world where half of all profit increases were done by companies, not by the growth of material cost or the loss of venture capital. They are not laying people off because they are struggling quite the opposite, they are laying them off because they promised 17% growth and they can achieve that by firing their engineers and assuming more with come.

It's always sad to see the "who could have forseen this" argument passed around whenever things like this happen.

In fact if you treated companies like any financial advisor would tell you to treat something like a 401k or a savings account they would have considered what these companies have been doing for the last two years outright gambling with them and in turn also gambling employees futures.

With a lack of accountability for these reckless financial decisions though there is little chance that things will improve in the short or long term. This will continue to happen until legislation provides some kind of guardrail to simply firing at will anyone who disrupts a profit margin with their well paid talent and years of service.