A lot of managers still operate under the assumption that software has a "build phase" and a "maintenance phase" and that they can get rid of most developers for the later. Aside from the obvious problems when they still want new features there's a correlation between the head count used to build something and the head count needed to effectively maintain it, 1 person won't be able to handle the enterprise mess that 100 people create.

So I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was engineers being let go a lot of the time. Especially at non software shops where marketing is bringing in money and the engineers are a cost.