Big tech layoffs should work differently than most industries and may not impact unemployment as much. Big tech employees a lot of H1B visas holders. If they cannot quickly find a new job, they will have to leave the country.
Taking the emotion out of it and looking at a macro level though, I think the program has been abused by big tech to bring in workers who have less bargaining power and I'm all for it getting a bit of a reset. The purpose of the program is to bring in in-demand, high skill workers that employers cannot find in the US. If these employees cannot find other jobs quickly, it makes me question how in-demand their skills actually were.
5-8 years of FAANG wages is enough for someone to move back to, say, India, and retire.
It's very possible moving back home means pulling kids out of school, leaving friends, and your partner having to quit their job. None of that is fun or easy.
For example, Meta employees laid off in November are still technically Meta employees, as far as immigration is considered, and will remain so until 2023/02, at which point they will be formally terminated, and the H1B clock starts ticking (60 days).
That translates to 4-5 months to find your next H1B-sponsoring gig. It's an added layer of existential stress, but the lived experience isn't "I need to find a new job quickly or I will be deported" for H1B employees with common big-tech severance packages. While I don't want to diminish the psychological toll, it's helpful to understand that these severance packages have cushioned the intrinsic risk of working on an H1B visa significantly.