[fian]

For many people, being selected for a layoff can feel like you have been judged as a lower performer than your colleagues. The thinking being that the company would always want to retain their best performers. This can cause a big loss of confidence for some people. They will be stuck thinking "Why was I one of those chosen for being laid off?"

Often though, the decision on who to lay off also considers who might be close to retirement, who might cost more to make redundant (redundancy pay in many places is based on years of service and there might also be long service leave owed), and the mixture of skills and knowledge the company thinks it will need going forward.

Also some people will have built up strong relationships with colleagues, teams and clients through their work. Their potential to continue these relationships typically drops dramatically without it being a regular part of work. That can make some people quite sad personally and frustrated that all of the work developing those relationships will suddenly not be very useful anymore.