Are Holiday Lay Offs Bad PR?

Just a question that popped up as a pondered Palm's recent lay off of employees. Earlier this week RealNetworks (RealPlayer) laid off some of it's employees, but RealNetworks is sorta obscure so I don't think it will sit in the mind of consumers when they see the RealPlayer Logo.

But Palm is a very well known company with a very well known logo and a very well known problem right now. Palm is taking a bit of an hit and has been doing so for the past year. There aren't too many announcements that come out of Palm that are filled with good news. But how does it effect a company when they announce lay offs weeks before Christmas day, when PR is already on the rocks?

Sure, a company has to do what it has to do to stay afloat, I think we all understand that. But does it come across as particularly cruel when folks lose their jobs right before a happy holiday like Christmas? A holiday (sadly) where having money to spend is almost a necessity. It seems to me that Palm could have waited a few weeks for this. I'm not privy to their books and how badly they are bleeding, and they probably needed to do this a month ago, but I can't help but feel like this is an extremely bad PR hit on a company already swimming in a pool of bad PR.