When a division/department is no longer needed and is not of strategic importance what would those workers do? IOW, how would their continued presence benefit the company? I suppose they could offer jobs elsewhere within the company and retrain and keep the better employees but that brings on a whole new set of questions.
I do believe there should be some shared suffering between the executives and the rank and file though when there are layoffs -a failed endeavor is after all a reflection on management also and they should not be getting bonuses while the underlings get slashed. All imo of course.