IIRC Japan Labor Law makes it much more difficult to do "layoffs en masse" the way we've seen. It's possible but the company itself has to prove a lot of reasoning behind it and is also required to try other measures first (an instance of this being when Nintendo CEO took a pay cut instead.)

Here, companies need quite a serious reason to terminate or fire you, and even contracts will still get renewed unless if done a serious offense. Even if you don’t perform the best, there are laws that protect employees and you are given multiple chances to try again.

Instead, you'll see more negotiations resulting in a smaller number being cut and you'll see contract workers not being renewed first.