Long ago, I remember when hiring on to MS I was told: “You have a job for life if you want it. Microsoft has never laid off and never will. The company takes great pride in this fact and deservedly so has bragging rights. What makes this possible comes down to two things, rock solid products and even better management.” Everyone took comfort in this.
Later Steve Balmer took the reigns (insert eye roll here) and the years rolled by with lack luster stock performance. Then one day there was an internal email from him stating, and I’m paraphrasing: “The stock market has had a monumental downturn and while we don’t need to layoff and have huge cash reserves, the share holders expect us to as a means to prove that we are serious about cost savings.”
So they let a lot of people go, only to turn back around in less than a week and post job openings for those very same job roles again.