Technology

Larger companies are extremely siloed. I would imagine that Google is even worse since it has some very distinct business separations. (ie: Alphabet is "not" Google)

When mass layoffs happen, there are still going to be other lines of business that are hiring. People can get fired from one, talk to a recruiter and walk to another business.

Edit: In some weird cases, a single group could be forced to meet layoff AND hiring requirements. That only makes sense at the executive level where they are looking at numbers as a whole and not the line-level logic.

My experience is isolated to large US banks though. Layoffs were more like a huge game of musical chairs rather than thousands of people actually leaving the company.

Edit: It's also super easy to bury a single persons grievances as well. Sure, there could have been some nasty things happening at work, but retaliation by mixing up someone into a mass layoff is also a thing.

Once the sub-business layoffs are done and people have found a new seat, recruiting and HR are next in the crosshairs.

This is not always the case! However, it is common for mega-corps, in my personal experience.

No. You can use the firing to purge the lowest performers (or others you don't like) while you're hiring at the same time, with stricter requirements. You might even be able to get new people at a discount since you just flooded the market with people looking for jobs.