Let's say the average salary of the 12k people they just fired was $300000. That's 3.6bn a year. Last time I checked Alphabet were burning ~180bn a year. I'm not saying 3.6bn is pocket change, but how is such a small % supposed to make a difference? For comparison, they were fined ~4bn in Europe recently.
That is, demonstrating the business was suboptimal? This is awarding incompetent.
It's terrible for the people laid off, but from a company standpoint that falls within normal fluctuation range.
in a boom market you optimize for growth: spend some more to be ready to take on the next big thing.
with a looming recession you optimize differently.
basically they are showing they are prioritizing according to changing climate
Maybe it's just doing what investors want, or using that as an excuse to trim some fat. But when you're profitable I'm not sure it actually makes sense to slow down just because the economy has.
I am not saying that is the case here, but reducing a small percentage of cost could matter if your margin is small. And in the case of those big corps, you can think of them as multiple companies internally, it’s likely they are doing layoff on departments/ divisions that have thin margin or unprofitable (ie. if you are in ads, very few were probably laid off)