Every corporate downsizing is an example of a "private decision" with clearly visible public costs, unemployment insurance payouts among them. Social and emotional distress have a cost, not just to the employee, but their social group and family.

But, did I catch your opinion correctly? You believe we(society) are(is) providing unemployment benefits for too many months?

In your mind, who benefits from decreasing that assistance benefit? Cui bono?

McDonald’s didn’t wait for the minimum wage to go up to be motivated to install automated drink dispensing machines and self-service kiosks. In fact, the minimum wage adjusted for inflation was decreasing during the entire time period in which those innovations were deployed.

On the other end of the labor spectrum, companies like Meta had no problem hiring thousands of excess employees during a period of high wage growth and scarce tech talent.

When labor generates revenue, companies will hire regardless of regulations. When labor is unnecessary for revenue, no regulation will prevent a company from downsizing.

Extra, guaranteed severance pay and a reduced unemployment insurance bureaucratic burden would be a godsend for terminated employees. I argue that for most businesses it would be a minor adjustment to their standard operating procedures.

An analogy to your point: “Cars will be too expensive if safety standards are required.”

While it’s true that cars are more expensive than they would be without those safety features, the market has adjusted just fine and the societal benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

From what little I hear, the Germans seem to have found as good a balance as ever is likely to happen. There is good worker protection whilst industry is still being strong economically. Perhaps we should be looking at the way they do things.

Formerly in the UK, the chocolate-makers Cadbury was founded by a Quaker who had a strong sense of social responsibility motivated by Christian convictions. They were a profitable company who were taken over by Kraft.