The total headcount is irrelevant. What specific department overshot their required headcount by a hundred and fifty? Reviewing TFA, it's customer service and the context of it leans to being mass layoffs as Altlassan anticipates replacing those reps with LLM, which I'm sure Altlassan customers are simply thrilled about, and related, means the CEO's heartfelt message is even more hollow.

So, I will fully grant that my original statement doesn't really matter here; this wasn't a department that over-scaled to meet a project that didn't exist, this is in fact, the far shittier kind of layoffs: the ones that are a direct result of a company taking by all accounts a fully functioning department and taking an axe to it to improve their bottom line in 6 months, trading experienced workers who likely have relationships with their clients for soulless chatbots for their customers to now argue with.

So yes, I fully acknowledge I was wrong, and also, this is shittier than I assumed without reading. Take that how you will.