[VirusNewbie]

I'm not sure that means anything. Large companies do layoffs all the time, as it avoids risk of lawsuits. They often solicit managers to voluntarily include some of their people to be included in the layoffs (folks who might be PiPed, etc.) rather than going through a longer process.

It's a really blunt instrument that I don't agree with, but at all of these companies there are going to be people coasting, and layoffs are one way to sort of make people re-interview for their own jobs.

Source: Happened to my division at bigco, lots of people were RIF'ed, but then allowed to transfer to other teams, I and other teammates got offers from other groups only after we 'interviewed' with them.