Also just pruning projects, products and divisions that aren’t panning out as well as others. In simple economic turns, when interest rates are low, investments with relatively low returns can make sense. So initiatives get staffed even if the expected value of their payoff is marginal.

When interest rates go up, there are low risk ways to get those same returns, so business expectations of ROI go up.

So projects that made sense, were being run well, but which simply aren’t likely to make high enough returns are going to get canned in these conditions. No reflection of the staff laid off in such a case at all.