[throwawaymaths]

So you're saying that it's government's responsibility to let firms be shitty to their employees with stealth pay cuts?

I would MUCH rather a firm have to face the music and reputational damage of cutting employee pay or firing employees. It's far more honest and the actual other option is gasp don't cut your employees wage and instead take a hit to your margins.

[BehindBlueEyes]

Layoffs still happen, sometimes from healthy companies too, I doubt they’d think twice about any reputational damage over margin cuts.

[chii]

if you were the one whose jobs' being cut, would you make that very same argument?

[ponow]

Firms can do uniform pay cuts (say 2%) instead of targeted layoffs. That way all employees are in it together, and yet there's still market discipline in whether to cut.

[throwawaymaths]

I've been let go. It was fine.

The premise of your quip is nonsensical, since people are let go anyways. You wouldn't know that you were the marginal human that was cut because we are in inflation or not.