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Yep exactly, so many of the key employees are never identified by the metrics used by bean counters to decide who to cut. I would love to help out all the people in my org who want me to look at their PR and help them learn C++ a bit better, but unfortunately I would doom myself in the internal metrics for performance reviews. I saw too many of the people who were truly valuable in how they basically helped everyone else do the actual quantifiable work get RIFed in prior cycles.

We had layoffs that seemed random. We lost lousy people (do nothing) and also highly skilled people (too expensive?).

I’m the guy laying all of you off!

The laying off is done by a spreadsheet.

And that spreadsheet likely has an obligatory off by one row reference tucked away starting halfway down the employee lookup table in a hidden sheet, nonchalantly adding it's own wtf factor for who is and isn't included in the laying off in a subtle enough fashion to go unnoticed and accepted as is.