many of those writing here are from System LOB, so sometimes you have to focus the word "big" or "small" to the System LOB reality.
if you look ONLY at System LOB, layoffs have been really huge in the recent past, and still going on even if with less emphasys till now. a new big layoffs round is expected in may, and already started in some countries.
if you analyze what has happened in the recent past, basically all SPARC engineering is gone. big part of the Solaris engineering is gone, same as big part of HW support services is gone. all IB engineering is gone, same as all networking eng and few other dpts.
if you look at old ARIA data and compare to today (not so easy given the reorg under ES, but still possible if you knew who was in charge of what), roughly 75% of HW/Solaris engineering is gone. that's for sure what I call a BIG layoff.
now it's the turn of HW sales and presales, and the numbers will be more or less similar, with just a small difference: few of the people will be moved under the new Cloud/EngSys org. but it will be just a palliative.
nope, not a fake news or a noticias falsas or a fausses nouvelles, it's a dramatically true news, even if restricted to the System LOB (and I can understand many out there couldn't care less of System LOB and so do not see any big layoff...)