My experience is that over the last 10 years as a group manager, there are two main factors that determine what RIFs need to be made when the mandate comes down from Director or VP level; the first is that there is an increasing preference from VP level to replace salaried 'managers' with contractors so that headcount can be directly tied to signed revenue assurance based on an implementation that will take x months, so the contractor is contracted for those x months, and if performance is adequate they can then be signed on for a new contract for another newly sold revenue stream. This also avoids having to pay for holiday pay, sick pay, salary increases, retirement benefits(401K) etc. The other factor is that a group manager will simply get a raw overall payroll number that they need to RIF to. You could either let 1 tenured employee go to hit that requirement, or you can let go of multiple headcount from less tenured folks in the department. Generally more warm bodies are better to spread out the load, even if the expertise and quality of work doesn't match up. It's just a numbers game.
Bumped from @4gtf+1hpgy4Mo for info