And at small companies, a boss may fire someone they just don't like personally. And not all bosses at small companies necessarily understand what their underlings do for a company.

At big companies, if it is done right, the upper level management may ask for input from 1st line managers as to who they should fire. Also, my last company, all managers had to rank their underlings, and those at the bottom had a chance of being trimmed if there were layoffs.

Many big companies will listen to those first line managers, and almost any upper-level manager is aware of their lack of knowledge about the leaves of the management tree.

Employment is capricious in most situations.

Large and small organizations can both have politics, can see drastic restructuring when business changes or a major client makes a change (drops a product, demands a change, ...). Large companies may insulate somewhat against capricious changes, though non-operational circumstances (particularly mismanagement or liquidity crunches of the holding corporation) can cause sudden and drastic changes (Borders, UAL, American Airlines). Small companies can have cash-flow issues as well.

There's very little that's assured in life. Death and taxes you can count on.

> In big companies good people can end up being laid off because they happen to be in the wrong team/group/project and some clueless bean counter decides that's the business that needs to be eliminated.

Why do they have to be clueless? Projects are never failures? They could cut a terrible project and still end up laying off good people. Is that a bad thing?

In small companies good people can end up being laid off because they happen to not be buddy-buddy with their boss, and there's no oversight. Or because they aren't related to the owner.

It cuts both ways, for sure.

Small companies don't have to. They're small and the culture is immediately affected by the owners/founders/executive team directly.