Agreed, we tech worker in the US still have it pretty good, so some perspective is in order:
- when Enron took over Portland Gas and Electric, they folded in the PG&E employee 401ks into their stock, so many people retired with nothing after years of hard labor [1]
- AT&T recently cut life / death insurance benefits promised to retirees for employees retiring after 2022 (but those cuts don't apply to top executives) [2]
There are many instances of this, it happens all the time.
Don't get me wrong, getting laid off is terrible, but we can bounce back faster than most.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/01/20/f...
[2] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pa...