Amazon CEO denies full in-office mandate is 'backdoor layoff'

Because the net effect is that of a backdoor layoff. If the, historically benevolent and employee-friendly, management at Amazon says they believe it will be better for productivity, or whatever other excuse they have, then they should be able to back that up. Otherwise, there's no reason to believe their words versus the results we can objectively see.

So if there's no way to measure the advantage of in office vs remote is just entirely a vibes based decision? Sounds fairly reckless for a company of that scale. Companies have social responsibilities for their employees, and financial responsibilities against their owners. Surely you can't just say "I feel it's better to disrupt the life of a large chunk of our employees because that's what I feel like"

> I don’t understand why many people are unwilling to believe that C-suite execs pushing for RTO genuinely believe in it.

I struggle to believe them because their arguments make no sense to me. The economic arguments do make sense (from the companies' point of view), so I lean toward the more coherent arguments as being closer to the truth.