I wish I could like this post, but it unfortunately shows a lack of historical framing. So, as an elder millennial, I thought I'd backfill with some data from the 1990s onward. (I'm a bit of a management/tech history nerd as well and studied it in grad school)

TL:DR; The precarity of knowledge workers is not new and it happens every 3-5 years, though it sure feels like it's getting more common.

1991-1993: IBM laid off 120,000 white collar workers, the largest in history. AT&T and DEC also restructured.

1995-1996: Telecom and PC layoffs as labor shifted abroad and JIT management becomes dominant

2000–2002: Perhaps the first example of over hiring at the end of the 1990s (echoing the ZIRP era) and then massive layoffs with the Dot-com bust

2008–2010: Widespread layoffs across Big Tech and startups with the Great Recession.

2012–2015: Companies like Microsoft, HP, and IBM shed tens of thousands with post-mobile restructuring.

2020: Travel/service tech (Uber, Airbnb, etc.) were hit hard due to COVID shock.

2022–2024: The current wave we’re living through with Post-ZIRP and AI pivots.

If you're looking for books or articles, Gina Neff, Stephen Barley or Gideon Kunda have some of the oldest. In short, there is no real difference between then and now: Instability is hitting workers who genuinely thought they had made it.