AM or Associate Directors have very little influence on who gets laid off, other than the metrics they report.
An AM or AD is no power broker beyond their team. They can mismanage their group and place blame on their reports. Its really more of an admin position to a director to keep their reports up to date on compliance, assign projects, and screw over their reports to cover their askes. Most of what an AM does is based on their poor training.
Directors have some say, most is based off of ambiguous metrics beyond anyone control
Good riddance, its definitely a layer that could be trimmed - expect a "flattening of organizations" which means the level 2 AM and AD are getting more responsibility and no more pay - just a carrot to keep them hoping for that glimmer of a promotion. Need to be very political to get to Director - or related to someone - lots of relatives in ATO