For those of you too young to remember, he's the basic history of Corporate layoffs in America that all started with the government mandated breakup of the AT&T Bell System telephone monopoly on January 1, 1984 ("Divestiture" of AT&T's local Telephone Operating Companies, including Bell Atlantic).
AT&T Information Systems (IS) layoffs started in January 1984 that impacted ~25,000 employees with literally dozens of major rounds of cutbacks at AT&T following well into the 2000's. When it first began to happen it was literally a feeling of disbelief by not only by AT&T employees and their families, who were used to the benevolent Bell System ("Ma Bell") work culture, but also by Americans at large who couldn't fully grasp that the "contract" of employment for life was over at major companies. IBM soon followed suite and once they did the floodgates opened up on mass corporate layoffs which soon became commonplace and continue to this day.