Layoffs for reasons other than reduced demand, are common not only in the US business world, but also worldwide...
The real problem is this: there's no reduced demand!!
There's only the greed of big Companies trying to keep their level of profits high (as ever). If this means "cutting" jobs all over the world, who cares? There are always the poorer countries in which production can be obtained at lower costs (of labour, above all) and there is no great fuss about environmental issues and so on.
This is not economy, this is not protecting businesses...
THIS IS JUST GREED, PURE AND SIMPLE...
Meanwhile, countries in which the cost of labour is lower than it is in the great industrial countries (China, in primis) are growing every year at a 10% rate on GNP...
Let's go on like this: sooner or later, we're gonna go east, us all, guys... and we are going to forget economic development as we knew it in the last 2 centuries.
Everybody is going to work all day for bum paychecks and a fistful of rice for dinner.
Is this our future? Let me have a doubt about it...