This is definitely happening. After 6 glowing interviews, I was expecting an offer two weeks ago from a startup. small company, profitable, growing quickly, only 100 employees, just closed a $70m funding round. While waiting for the "final" interview, I noticed the 40 jobs on their website disappeared. Finally heard from them 10 minutes after the interview was supposed to start, to tell me they had decided to halt hiring and "rightsize" their (skeleton) staff.