During the financial crash in 2008 I worked for a global manufacturing consortium. Don't want to give away what industry it was because you could probably guess the company but we laid off something like 50% of our manufacturing staff during the crash.

Some workers were just given lay-off notice, others were put on furlough and told they would be called back when the industry improved.

One of the most loyal plant workers who had been there his entire 30 year career was not furloughed. They just got rid of him without even a thank you or a goodbye.

Some of my colleagues found him in his truck a few miles down the road. He had left the shop in tears and had actually "just jerked the wheel" to try to end it all. No seat belt, jerked the wheel and tried to crash and kill himself but ended up in the drainage ditch injured and crying. He felt like his entire existence had been destroyed just so a few executives could hang onto their bonus checks.