That seems strongly bad-faith as an assumption. I'd assume they hired people for what seemed like good reasons at the time, but things have changed and now they

That seems strongly bad-faith as an assumption. I'd assume they hired people for what seemed like good reasons at the time, but things have changed and now they need to have less payroll. Any hiring or new initiative looks "careless" if it didn't work out, but it could have just been a calculated risk that didn't pay off, especially given how chaotic the last few years have been.