This makes it easier for them to fire you and everyone else. Why, even as a contractor, would you be ok with that? Niceties or no you are weakening your own position and the value of you labor.
Because other countries have decided that "we need to make our quarterly earnings look good" isn't a good enough reason to can half your staff over. If you fire an employee at anytime it's just unpredictable (and inefficient) contract work.
Where did I say companies should be forced to pay for employees they don't need? I didn't say that.
What I did say is that this is yet another move by business to pay you less and offer you less security for your labor - because let's be honest, that's what this is. Companies will go with the lowest bidder they think can get the job done. Do you really want to have a race to the bottom for the price of your labor?
And for that matter, how do you think unions, tenure, weekends, 40 hr workweeks, PTO, sick leave, health benefits, and a whole other myriad of benefits for your labor came about? I guarantee you its certainly NOT because people in the past viewed their labor value as purely transactional to themselves and their employers.
I want to work for a company that’s financially strong (or at least profitable). If that means they sometimes fire people, that’s ok. I want my “don’t fire them” to be based on a premise that I’m creating much more value for them than I cost. That’s a stable situation for all parties, short and long term.
It doesn’t work like that though for publicly traded companies. Even if you bring in more revenue that they be are paying you, it can be attractive to fire you to juice the stock price on Wall Street.
I guess you never worked for a company that got record earnings after laying off 10000 employees.
I don't want my company in the red, but I also don't want to feel like I'm dangling on a cliff. There's a reason most companies stopped doing stack rankings.