If a company has 10 developers and needs to cut down to 7, then the folks who have actively been interviewing in the near past are going to be considered more of a risk, especially by HR, who are likely to be making the list.
Hiring is an expensive endeavor, so if HR sees someone as a risk and they need to cut positions, you can bet that they're going to see it as a better thing to let employees who have a risk factor to them go than others who don't (on paper that is, no-one can know what's going to happen tomorrow).
They definitely don't want to cut the staff down and then have to go into a hiring stage soon after, because someone who was getting itchy feet decided to walk with another offer anyway.
This isn't about targeting people just because they want more money/fairer pay/more holiday/bonuses. It's just about how companies behave.
But you don't make PEOPLE redundant, only POSITIONS.
If you are using redundancies as cover to target individuals that have annoyed you, then you will be shortly staring at the business end of a tribunal.