> Would you rather have layoffs at your company or have your company go out of business due to excessive labor costs?

I invite you to read earnings reports from any of the FAANG companies in the last 5 years. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Most people actually don't work at immensely profitable FAANG companies.

And yet they're so massive that them all doing layoffs at the same time despite that profitability has a huge impact on the labor market of the while industry.

If someone produces less effort than they cost, it's reasonable to fire them even if the organization as a whole is profitable. That's probably not what the FAANG companies did, but layoffs are not unjustifiable for profitable companies.

We're not talking about performance terminations here.

Your employer doesn’t need you to buy food or pay for a roof over their head.

You need your employer to stay fed and housed.

There is a lot more downside for you than your employer, thus a massive power asymmetry. The only way to restore the balance is solidarity between workers and it’s usually a union (or a guild)

I don't need my employer for that either, because they're competing for my labor in a market with many other employers. It would be extremely costly to replace me because of the critical role I have on a highly profitable product. If anything, I'm the one with leverage, which I use every year to request more pay, fancier titles, and larger responsibilities.

Realistically, if I were laid off today I'd likely land a better paying job than this one. I choose to stay because I like my boss, my work, and my coworkers.

If circumstances changed such that it made sense to lay me off then I should be laid off. Why should anyone be obligated to pay my salary if I'm not offering commensurate value?

> It would be extremely costly to replace me because of the critical role I have on a highly profitable product.

> If circumstances changed such that it made sense to lay me off

Companies don't always do things that make sense.

Good for you. You’d still have all that and even more leverage with a union. And so would all your fellow SEs instead of only you.

Get some financial discipline and arrange an emergency fund covering at least 6 months of expenses. It's amazing how much less leverage your employer is able to exert if you can make good on a threat of leaving.

Or you could have leverage from a union and not have to seriously consider quitting every time you need something from your employer.

> It's amazing how much less leverage your employer is able to exert if you can make good on a threat of leaving.

Look how well it worked for the mass layoffs.

Should the most profitable companies on the planet be free to lay off good performers in a country where healthcare is tied to employment?

You can invent strawmen like poor performers and failing companies all day long but the facts differ quite a lot from your perception.

What motivation would a company have to lay off a good performer? Seems counter-productive, but I'm not a CEO