You either get filtered out via said "layoff" or wanting to quit, or you're desperate enough to work for much, much less.
In the balance of flow of power, the workers were getting too much, so the people in power plus stock market are "abstracting" that whip crack.
They will remain in power unless a unified front is achieved. Now that I think about this explicitly, I think the solution is actually unionization. Weirdly.
Just imagine this exact same thing, but imagine if it were factory workers instead: the workers start being happy and comfortable, then a worldwide event makes some really obvious breakthrough that their lives should be even better, and they start ACTUALLY demanding 50% more money, which means your labor is now 90% of your cost rather than 60% - WHERE'S THAT MONEY GONNA COME FROM?? The CEO's pocket? Not if they can help it. And, there's pressure from above that 60% labor was already too much, and to get it to 55% by the end of the year because the stock market and the board demand it. So, you need to put those workers in their place; it's not about one single thing, but your CEO groupchat says that if you claim this and that, and make the workers unhappy again, unify your CEO friends' front and lay people off, they'll be desperate and submissive again.
It's literally a buyout from above. The CEOs are like the bigger business, making it shitty for everybody, but knowing they can afford to weather it better than the workers, and that it'll result in a swing of power.
And... They're right.
What do you even do about this? You either organize militaristically and take on a TON of risks, or submit like the greedy, selfish, rat-scab coward you know you are. And that's what we're all gonna do until a leader appears, myself included.
I don't like it, but I see it for what it is. Widespread ignorance and misplaced ire are against us. This is the American way.