The business case for firing personnel during the holiday season is a mixture of all of these:
1. New year start coming soon and companies want to show lower no of headcounts on their books, and thus higher productivity (sales/headcount etc);
2. Avoiding bonus payments or pension plans – although severance costs come in – but bear in mind that whilst bonuses and salaries are above the operating profit, thus affecting the companies’ official performance, severance goes below, so one more incentive to do so;
3. More free time for the laid off persons to look for a new job and spend more time with the families;
4. lower sales and lower production orders for many industries, which take advantage of it to trim a bit the headcount numbers;
5. preparing for the next year’s wave of hirings and firing undesired/not qualified staff;
6. Performance review time, when people who are underperforming are just kicked out…
Sounds weird to me that many companies do so, yet these are companies, not human beings, and they play by different rules…