Career Oriented Individual

At my company, I work in a product that was bought by my current employer. Before we bought them they had a smallish development staff of 6 employees. 2 of these employees were let go upon the acquisition, 1 moved to Cleveland and the remaining 3 worked remotely from New Hampshire. 2 weeks ago we had an end of day Friday meeting and were told that the New Hampshire employees were being let go since having remote employees 'hurt the process.' It's hard for me to say if that's true or not. It's true that many things have gotten a fair amount smoother, but the knowledge base we've lost is incredibly immense and who knows how that will affect us in the coming months.

As a result, many of my peers have been tidying up the old resume and I'd be lying if I didn't say I was among them. Due to a lack of vacation days I'm not really looking until I can afford to travel on weekdays for interviews. I did, however, speak with my boss about whether there's anything resembling a promotion/raise on the horizon. He told me I was ready and he's fighting for me and that's the most that can happen for the time being.

Now, my friend did actually receive an offer another company that was roughly an 8k raise. He looked like he was going to leave but my company counter offerred and now it appears he's going to stay on. Now that sucks. He was well deserving of such a thing due to the work he did there but was only offerred anything after threatening to leave. With my department in the state it's in with so few people left with any idea of how this purchased product functions all the members are somewhat crucial for it to remain functioning. Does this mean I have to threaten to leave before I can actually get anything legitimate here? I do not like the precedent set here and I really do not like anyone getting picked for career bumps based on their claims of leaving. Overall I'm getting rather sick of this company and the career games they're playing. I'm tired of seeing echoes of "the bottom line" all over the place.