The company is very business oriented, political, and bureaucratic. From a technical stand point, if you think mastering a technical skill sets or trade will protect your point-of-views, you are in for a rude-awakening. There were a lot of good talented people that were laid off. In contrast, there were also a few others that were kept and did not possess the same talent.
Over the years that I have worked as a technician, I have found that business knowledge and influence can be a more powerful tool than mastering a technical skill set. Management provides little or no direction, so you will find yourself having to do the work for them. Eventually, you may end up doing the job well enough that they develop a dependency towards you and ask for your advise. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you don't assume to be the authority on your conversations.
A suggestion I recommend, only if it benefits you, is to continue working on making your manager look good. I recommend this with caution. I have been under three different managers since I have worked with the company. All of them have a different sense of character. If you have a manager that asks for more, but lacks to acknowledge or does little for you in return, avoid wasting your time with this. You will end up doing more work than the payoff is worth.
As some of the previous comments in here state, additional responsibilities can be easily acquired. To expect additional pay or significant pay increase, the company would rather assume that the same job could be done off-shore with lesser pay. One may argue that those responsibilities upheld provided significant revenue increase. But with the direction to which the company is headed to as it has grown, its corporate ego has disregarded the voice of the employees that help build it. At its current state you are treated as a number. Perhaps the situation may change someday.
