Because they have cover to do so now. The game for the last several years was to hoover as much talent as possible to prevent competitors from beating you to i

Because they have cover to do so now. The game for the last several years was to hoover as much talent as possible to prevent competitors from beating you to it, even if you ended up with more people than useful work and even if you ended up with a lot of poor performers. And during that phase, it hurts further recruiting to let anyone go because you look like the singularly bad actor. The boats were all out trawling for whatever they'd catch. Now, the perception of a turned economy and tightening money supply has let everybody finally exhale and start purging and pruning without a targeted reputation hit because everybody's doing it. The boats are back in harbor and are sorting through their take. If this is your first time around, welcome to the industry!