I agree with that assessment, we cannot be sure if it is the chicken or the egg. Which is the symptom and which is the root cause. Another notion of that is th

I agree with that assessment, we cannot be sure if it is the chicken or the egg. Which is the symptom and which is the root cause. Another notion of that is that when companies want to downsize (I have seen this multiple times(e.g. they need to relocate and they want to get rid of the current pool and get a new one in the new/cheaper location), they can/may/are using this tactic do make people "unhappy" with the current environment, make the experience/enjoyment poorer (no more drinks/pizzas on fridays). For this purpose (reduce headcount even while in profit) some anticipated actions are to shrink bonuses/raises, but removing someone's joyful moments definitely helps.