Probably only in the same way cartoons made kids belief that gravity only takes affect when one looks to the audience. Most often, most kids won’t transfer any of that to reality but we all had that one kid at our school who was reaaaaaally close to do the Naruto run.
Yeah they want to make it clear that they laid off people and he should not get rewarded for it, however I think we all read ‘thanks to the layoffs he could increase his pay’