Each manager probably have a few people in mind when their higher ups asks them to cut down head count in the department. Unless they decide to cut down the entire department of course. Then performance no longer matter.
From my experience, this is not the case. Layoffs in the US (especially those in tech) are quite secret and quite sudden, which means the decision of whom to lay off is typically done at a sufficiently high level where they’re generally clueless about individual performance.
Each manager probably have a few people in mind when their higher ups asks them to cut down head count in the department. Unless they decide to cut down the entire department of course. Then performance no longer matter.
From my experience, this is not the case. Layoffs in the US (especially those in tech) are quite secret and quite sudden, which means the decision of whom to lay off is typically done at a sufficiently high level where they’re generally clueless about individual performance.