[samatman]

It seems you missed a beat here.

The comment you're replying to isn't talking about the layoff round. It's talking about what happens next, when someone from the team gets hired elsewhere and the boss says "we need more people". Who gets brought in?

This is a very common scenario in our line of work.

[deathanatos]

Oh, a bit, the parent comment is a bit malformed at that point (why is the new boss talking about my old coworkers? how?), and yeah, I think your interpretation is probably correct.

… that's not really a situation that occurs, for one reason or another. Good people tend to be able to line up "next job" somewhat quickly and even if not, "my job" being a match isn't going to happen on a timescale after a layoff. I.e., we're laid off, time passes, I recover with a job, more time must pass before I'm going to be in the "we need more [good] people" and by that point there's basically no way they've not found work. Even then, getting a recruiting team to articulate a pitch in this industry is rending blood from a stone.