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.