In good times it's easy to make money. When those good times evaporate you start seeing the quality of the management. - In most cases, the management is pretty poor, and that runs throughout.

Incidentally, I once got asked to stop 'management bashing' by my manager as she thought I was being very unfair. We were teaching managerial skills at the time and I introduced her to the works of Deming. We never had that conversation again.

I've worked in several industries; lack of planning is rampant everywhere.

I think we're seeing a spot of opportunism. A lot of companies were on the brink prior to COVID and are now blaming it (rather than their own ineptness) for the company going under. We've still only seen the tip of a very large iceberg.

Listening to today's announcement about the government paying companies to take on youngsters, I expect a raft of older people will lose their jobs. Unfortunately, governments interfere but rarely think through the full implications of their actions. The motor industry is a perfect example.

There's certainly a lot of it going on, and it seems strange these job cuts are happening when the country's starting to open. Perhaps, as you say Rebbonk, it's cutting costs for the sake of cutting costs.

They've got a flawed business model.

I think we'll be seeing more of this.

That lasted all of 5 minutes. Bit short sighted, really, as Stratford's branch is a 2 minute walk from Bill's place & town's in the process of reopening: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53304869