I'm not familiar with any particular tax rule that benefits employers laying off, or reducing their workforce.

If you don't mind sharing which one that is I'd like to read more.

Generally from what I understand companies hire a lot of fluff / fat to get favors from politicians, make the stock look strong, to have fodder, the practice is called Hire to Fire, generally speaking there's a lot of incompetent people that are working because companies are generally incentived to do so but when the economy gets really tight like it is now that's generally when they reduce employee count since the loss incurred is too great to subsidize.