The Maven: Lowdown on Layoffs

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If you think Wall Street loves layoff announcements, take a look at how the business media greet them. It is an ultimate irony that reporters -- busy whining in their own newsrooms about how the product they produce will break bad if a single hair-care-product columnist is laid off -- do so little critical thinking about layoffs at other companies. There's never a sense that announced cuts often don't materialize ... or do, but at a higher cost, as buyout packages have to be sweetened to find takers.

Worst of all (see, uh, that hair-care columnist), there is never a sense (so vital to the well-being of investors) that cuts have potential costs. That brings us to Business Week -- no stranger to layoffs -- and its decent coverage dealing with layoffs at Pfizer (PFE Quote).

The big ditty on Pfizer concluded the way many articles on the company do not: It discussed how Pfizer will sell drugs in the absence of so many salespeople, whose layoffs have been recently announced. ...