At some point, layoffs at SAP stopped being a last resort and started being a standard business tool. Instead of exhausting every other option first, cutting employees is now the main go-to move whenever costs need trimming.
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One of the works council member I spoke to thinks that CK and DA didn't want too many layoffs. They only wanted to use them as a negotiation tactic to push for performance management and reduce employee benefits. The works council ended up saying yes to almost everything HR and the executive board wanted to prevent mass layoffs.
@OP Not exactly. Every layoff adds more budget to executive bonus budget. So they will not go away completely. But they will always use them as the stick to keep us plebs in line. Gone are the days when SAP focused more on carrots than sticks.
I agree, it feels this way and it's stressful. It's not clearly said but your manager makes you feel under threat for every situation. It used to be an option only for difficult situations where the employee had bad behavior and have consistently bad performance or just doesn't care and they have to fire him/her.
But now everyone can get it, the good and the bad (there's no ugly :-))
DA implied this with his toothbrushing comparison.