"A Bain & Company study of layoffs at S&P 500 firms during the 2001 downturn showed that it took them six to 18 months to realize savings from job cuts. And, when calculating savings, most executives fail to account for the cost of recruiting, hiring, and training new people who will be needed when good times return—let alone consider the damage to morale and productivity. Those costs are often much higher than people imagine, which helps explain why the study also found that firms that made layoffs their last resort and cut the fewest employees performed better than their competitors did."

You can read the entire HBR article online

This one deserves your attention!