I loathe to hint to you that 90% of jobs are 'dead end jobs'. There is no 'promotion' waiting for you arbitrarily. It's a steep hierarchy and most people don't want to perform to compete.
Moreover, in a downturn, it's rare that people are going to just jump off to a promotion, and rolling the dice is quite risky. Responsibilities, family, mortgages, etc..
I think a lot of the posture here is coming from young people in tech jobs who have a somewhat different situation than others, and, who might not realize how much risk is involved here.
It's almost always better to have the option to keep a job than not. If people don't want to stay they can leave.
I have no idea how you can claim to understand risk... then decline a guaranteed X months of pay for an uncertain number of months of pay that might even be less than X.
And the whole diatribe about dead end jobs, while packed full to the gills with angst, is just misunderstanding: usually dead end job means the job continues without upward mobility. Here it means you get terminated once things go from "bad" to "really bad" for your employer and you have no idea when.
Moreover, in a downturn, it's rare that people are going to just jump off to a promotion, and rolling the dice is quite risky. Responsibilities, family, mortgages, etc..
I think a lot of the posture here is coming from young people in tech jobs who have a somewhat different situation than others, and, who might not realize how much risk is involved here.
It's almost always better to have the option to keep a job than not. If people don't want to stay they can leave.