With all the layoffs going on, it's worth asking whether managers ever ponder the ethical implications of what they're doing.

As the self-styled "ethics guy" Bruce Weinstein says, sacking people is an ethical issue because it impinges on the rights of others. ""No matter how strong the justifications for reducing the workforce are or seem to be, laying off loyal and productive employees is an upsetting experience for all concerned, and those on the receiving end face not just financial but psychological injury," he says. "Getting laid off compromises all of these things so managers should think of downsizing as a deep and painful trauma for those being let go, and not as a mere setback or reversal of fortune."

That means managers have to do it in a way that protects the dignity of the person getting sacked. He says they need to do it in person, not over the phone or by email, they need to ensure privacy is protected and they should also be honest without being brutal.

As New York Times blogger Randy Cohen says, redundancies have to have an ethical dimension. "Mass layoffs relegate people to the status of disposable objects," Cohen writes. "A company can mothball its welding robots (although I hear the new models can wake themselves up and contact some kind of killer robots of the future who will travel back in time and terminate us all). But people are not machines. Many ethical systems mandate that you do not treat a person like a thing. You must regard other people as full human beings with the same moral rights as you. And that must include the right to make a living."

The fundamental problem is that mass sackings are always reactive, responding to massive shifts in the economy. Not a lot of thought goes into the ethics.

The question is what can be to change this?