[Pinus]

I don’t know about the rest of Europe, but here’s how it usually plays out in Sweden: 1. Company needs to save money. 2. Company decides to shut branch office X and cancel project Y. 3. Company now has more employees than it has positions. 4. Employees get reshuffled across remaining positions according to complex rules (but basically last-in-first-out). 5. Employees that end up being "left over" are laid off. So the official reason is not "lack of money", but "lack of work". I’ve seen it happen several times, and ended up on both sides of the rope, so to speak. It’s a matter of Following The Procedures, but that’s all there is to it.