It makes sense that anything a company can do to minimize layoffs is a good thing, but it seems this isn't necessarily true. An article in Maclean's says

[W]age rollbacks are actually worse for worker morale than layoffs. When workers are fired, it generally sends a wave of discontent through the ranks. But then the affected employees are gone, and after a few weeks, things return more-or-less to normal. In contrast, when wages are cut, bad feelings linger in the office for months as employees grumble and debate whether they’ve been mistreated by management, and when they’ll get their “real” full paycheque back. Strange as it may seem, employers believe it’s actually less disruptive to simply fire people.