[tipsydoo]

That's a bit of a leap. The argument is that the pain should be felt at the top as well as the bottom, as a function of the state of the company. The least execs could do is try to appear as if they're working to keep people's livelihoods intact. They could signal this in a number of ways, but it's a matter beyond an irrational sense of fairness; if the execs don't have to sacrifice anything at all, is the company really in such dire straits that employment has to be disrupted for the most vulnerable parts of the org?

[osigurdson]

I do agree that large scale layoffs should always include execs. Not even from a moral standpoint, but just from a logical one. Execs have the greatest ability to shape a company and are therefore most responsible when things go wrong. After all, how likely is an exec than runs a company into the ground likely to successfully manage a turnaround?

Of course, if a company’s execs control the company (have majority shares) then they can do whatever the hell they want - including firing everybody and running the company into the ground if they feel like it.