Is overhiring really a problem, would the world be better if companies didn’t overhire? Then many of the people now laid off wouldn’t have had a job in the first place. If you accept a job for what it is, a temporary need for your help, and plan for what’s next, a period of layoffs should become manageable.
Consider my situation. I passed my Google interview in October for New Grad 2023 and was told that my starting date would be April.
Now I’m most likely not going to be hired and need to restart my job search and this will have derailed my entire plans for the first few months of this year. I won’t see a cent.
OTOH, you've learned an important lesson early: You aren't hired until your first day of work. The job search never stops and never ends, until you're really ready to stop working.
Next time when someone agrees to hire you in the hypothetical future, you will keep looking and interviewing, at least until you have accepted a formal offer from someone.
(I'm assuming here that they didn't give you an actual, formal offer even if they did tell you about a starting date)
Your situation is one of extreme privilege, being able to have desirable plans, for many months, while unemployed.
I've turned down job offers in the future, because they're empty promises. You're a hiring req in some drawer, until the first day, because everyone is aware it's an empty promise.
Which is worse: never getting hired by google, or getting hired, working for a few years making a great or even outsized salary and then getting laid off after getting great experience? - or never having had the opportunity to in the first place?
An awful lot of people would prefer the first scenario and will come out ahead.
Due to tech giants' overhiring and overpaying policies, a lot of people re-qualified in recent years. Now those Juniors can't find their easy-to-get-dream-jobs f or months and situation is getting worse for Seniors, too, as both bigger and smaller (and also both public and private) companies are doing hiring freezes, layoffs, invoke no-raises policies and all sorts of cost cuts.
Sure - all those people could try to go back to what they were doing earlier but there are layoffs and freezes in not only tech and related industries.
Those people are being punished for doing what the giants-led market demanded.
