The old addage is that the stock market is not the economy.

"Wouldn't this mean that capital is flowing in..."

Not really. If the price of shares in your company goes up it doesn't mean you have more cash in your pocket. You would need to sell shares or issue additional shares to have more cash to pay people with. There's other ways an increased price could be beneficial of course.

Good question. My theory is that companies overhired during the pandemic and are now correcting.

AI is another wildcard. It remains to be seen exactly how much it will reduce the demand for developers but it seems very likely to at a minimum cut into the entry level job market.

Stock market pricing also tends to follow inflation expectations. Every time inflation is expected to increase, stock market tends to go up.

Not necessarily because ‘more inflation adjusted dollars’ but because ‘same thing will be worth more dollars, after inflation’.

Not necessarily. Layoffs mean higher profit margins and that often leads to an increase in stock price as it means higher potential payout for shareholders.