What if they are laying off to make room for better developers?
It's clear by now that these layoffs aren't targeting low performers. They're not targeting any individual. They are an accounting exercise with selection based on meeting a formula. The suggestion in some quarters is that there's a kind of collective hysteria driving the layoffs amongst tech companies. Incorrect. The one thing all these companies have in common is that they all have the same pool of institutional shareholder.
The layoffs are not about saving money, they are about being seen to save money.
The institutional shareholders have demanded this be done, and the boards have complied. The big layoffs - Google, Amazon, MS, etc - are largely pointless and don't make any meaningful savings. And let's not do the "thinning of the herd" bullshit, please.
Why have the institutional investors demanded this? 1) because they've become accustomed to make obscene amounts of money and want to continue making obscene amounts of money even when things are slowing down, and they (wrongly) believe laying people off is the way to do this 2) because they can. They hold the real power.
Apple have largely avoided doing layoffs because his 40% paycut has soothed the baying suits, and Tim Cook is in a powerful position anyway. Most other CEOs, not so much...
This assumes you can identify bad workers (for some metric of bad which may or may not be ethical or sensible)
This not only assumes that you can identify bad workers, but that you can also identify some percent of "good workers that other companies identified as bad workers".
Shameless profit taking by executives and shareholders seems a lot more likely. Google and Microsoft providing PR cover for smaller companies to do it under the radar.
Good: P(good)=p Bad: P(bad)=(1-p)
Have a bad employee detector
P(detected as bad|bad)=q1
P(detected as good|bad)=1-q1
P(detected as good|good)=q2
P(detected as bad|good)=1-q2
Fraction of employees detected as good:
pq2+(1-p)(1-q1)
Fraction of employees detected as bad (and therefore fired)
p(1-q2)+(1-p)q1
Suppose you pay a discount on ability to hire new good employees as d (so probability to hire a new good employee is dp instead of p)
So you benefit as long as
p(1-q2)/((1-p)q1)<dp/(1-dp)
Or
(1-q2)/q1 < d (1-p)/(1-dp)
Plugging in p=.8, d=.5, q1=q2=q (knowing good and bad is equally hard)
(1-q)/q < .167
Break even is then
q = 1/1.167=.857
So if you start with 80/20 distribution and after a while improve your discrimination to 86/14 then firing benefits you even if you are hiring from a 40/60 pool.
Should someone laid off as a developer simply accept they can't cut it, leave the industry, and find a job as a barista where at least they can earn some tips?
You make a lot of assumptions about what devs are being laid off in the first place. And about the absolute quality of a developer.
One company's garbage developer is another company's 10x.
If they are firing people for performance reasons during their normal performance review cycle, it's not really a layoff.