This is assuming that layoffs affect the correct group of people, in which case the obvious question is why couldn't those people be informed earlier and been given a choice to find a different position or to improve their performance? At Google specifically, many high performers were laid off without explanation. When entire programs were cut, many general-purpose programmers were lost simply due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time rather than having the wrong skills or having low performance.
Given that the evaluation of who to cut is made by outside groups, in a short period of time, without appeal, it seems more likely that layoffs in these cases are less about cutting low performers and more about getting rid of people the company is mismanaging, or people that the company is overpaying. Without changing that mismanagement, the result won't be a better environment. The message to employees is rough also: "don't trust our performance evaluations".
It's not "don't trust out performance evaluations". The point of perf evals is rarely to fire people, it's primary use is to manage expectations of promotion.
> This is assuming that layoffs affect the correct group of people
Layoffs often don't target the right group of people when it comes to perf. There's error in human judgement abound. But it's 100% accurate when it comes to which business units are bringing in revenue, or costing a lot.
> why couldn't those people be informed earlier and been given a choice to find a different position or to improve their performance
Human attention is a scarce resource. Executives will tolerate inefficiency during up markets because it's more valuable to try to capture growth vs become efficient. When there's no growth to be had, then they turn their attention towards cutting costs.
> it seems more likely that layoffs in these cases are less about cutting low performers and more about getting rid of people the company is mismanaging, or people that the company is overpaying
The larger a company gets, the more these are effectively the same thing. Money in, value out. Too much money, too little value, you're just changing two sides of a ratio.
Given that the evaluation of who to cut is made by outside groups, in a short period of time, without appeal, it seems more likely that layoffs in these cases are less about cutting low performers and more about getting rid of people the company is mismanaging, or people that the company is overpaying. Without changing that mismanagement, the result won't be a better environment. The message to employees is rough also: "don't trust our performance evaluations".