You'd be surprised at the kinds of hr policies that makes their own sense, but has no common sense.

Most likely to avoid someone returning on false pretenses to retaliate against being downsized in the firstplace.

Yeah that's the sort of policy a sociopath would think is a good idea.

Maybe because when downsizing you pick the lowest performers that for whatever reason you haven't already fired

> Maybe because when downsizing you pick the lowest performers that for whatever reason you haven't already fired

"Lowest performers" doesn't imply bad performers (e.g. a strong team of A & B players).

Also downsizing can happen in different ways. For instance: "we're closing this whole site and laying off everyone who works there," or "this project failed [due to bad leadership], so we're laying off the whole team."

There was an interesting comment on HN a while ago to the effect that "I have personally seen one team laid off and another kept, while everyone agreed that the laid-off team was performing better, because the rent on the building they were in was more expensive".

Because someone made a shitty policy.

Presumably for the same reason that, after sleeping with your friend's wife, you wouldn't try to make friends again.