"Companies" are made up of individuals. If a company has a culture where they make an attempt to care and put on a public face of caring then that is an awesome start, but actually making that work comes down to you and your managers.
> you wrongly believed their promises that they would take care of you (retraining, career growth, not laying off, not outsourcing, etc).
None of these things _ever_ just happen, even when promised. People who want them have to actively make them happen. The promise is just a "the company won't get in the way" thing, which is the best you can hope for.
Your comments make it sound a bit like your career is something that has happened to you. Careers atrophy unless you take steps to force the direction.
For example, if retraining was mentioned, then find an online course at Udacity or something, get the annual review or whatever where retraining was mentioned, and send en email to your manager saying "hey my review said I need to do retraining. I need $450 for this course and then go from there".
Even in the best companies it's pretty rare someone will actually organise something like this for you.
I understand what you're saying, but that's not really what I'm talking about.
It is solely the company who decides to outsource or lay off after saying they don't do that kind of thing. You have no recourse when the company gives you a bad rating. They don't even allow you to be present for the secret trial they put you on (calibration). God help you if you're in one of the departments that requires a manager to pick someone for a bad rating to balance out a top rating. Without a union, there's no way to contest bad ratings and keep the people in power from screwing over workers.
I have gotten certs like for AWS and one specific to my area's business acumen. So I'm not sitting here doing nothing. But it doesn't help that much and there aren't many options in my area.
> you wrongly believed their promises that they would take care of you (retraining, career growth, not laying off, not outsourcing, etc).
None of these things _ever_ just happen, even when promised. People who want them have to actively make them happen. The promise is just a "the company won't get in the way" thing, which is the best you can hope for.
Your comments make it sound a bit like your career is something that has happened to you. Careers atrophy unless you take steps to force the direction.
For example, if retraining was mentioned, then find an online course at Udacity or something, get the annual review or whatever where retraining was mentioned, and send en email to your manager saying "hey my review said I need to do retraining. I need $450 for this course and then go from there".
Even in the best companies it's pretty rare someone will actually organise something like this for you.