Are redundancies getting out of hand?

I feel up until COVID, the talk about redundancies was very rare. I remember Telstra went through layoffs and they lost a lot of goodwill in the community. However, since COVID I feel redundancies have become the norm. Redundancies are not just limited to consulting but also in every industry. I recently been made redundant, a friend just told me his firm told him today they are going to go through restructuring. Another friend received that information a few weeks ago and they've all been on edge.

This is across different firms - big to small.

I'm just wondering what's happening to the Australian economy. Why are there so many redundancies and why are companies not fined for continuously hiring then making roles redundant?

The job market is also so hard to break into and it's not helping that the cost of living has been crazy. Is it just me feeling this?