I'm going to try to be as neutral as I can because some of you aren't going to care for some of this.
I've got a couple of decades in my seat. It was IPL when I joined. And in that time I watched the company grow wildly without a structured approach, and the predictable happened. As long as the money flowed freely we hired like mad, grew an ineffective, massively fat organizational structure and set off on an unsustainable path.
That all layers of the org are far too large is failure of management. Most of those are now gone of course.
And now we're being dragged into competence, which means we have to unwind the excess. Our model is becoming growth by acquisition, completely changing the needs from the workforce. Finally we have large redundancy due to the Spectra acquisition, and management will be adjusted first.
There is no good argument against the layoffs that isn't predicated on the company remaining inefficient and bloated with a diminished future. I thought I was gone last round - we will see what happens this time. If I go, I don't begrudge the company the choice. Treat me with respect in our final transaction and we will part ways satisfied.
One last though - there's no right way to do layoffs. They tried the surprise event, the rough idea of when, and now the preannounced week. All lead to unhappiness.