Greed is too easy as a target.. industry space has shifted because of slower innovation and less growth, so cost cutting being more a focus would be a reasonable strategy
There is no justification for "cost cutting" when it hurts the larger economy. If the company were losing money, that would be different, but these mass layoffs are all from firms that make obscene, enviable levels of profit. It's greed.
But they were making high profits for decades, and being greedy for decades. Then there were a lot of layoffs. What changed ?
There is no justification for "cost cutting" when it hurts the larger economy.
It is not good for the economy to have people doing work that doesn't produce value.
This is a political statement, not an economic one. What is or isn't good for the economy is up to the goals of that economy. In Japan, for example, they've more or less adopted the opposite principle as an important plank in their political system. Or perhaps it would be better to say that they've adopted the idea that people having jobs is more important than those jobs having a direct connection to some measure of productivity.