It's clearly a combination of stealth layoffs and "because we can" attitude by a lot of C-suite right now.

Labor market is soft, so they will take as much as they can while they can, on the status quo bias of "in-office must be more productive, especially if employees don't like it".

It's the dumbest form of stealth layoffs as it's random untargetted regarding the company's actual department/role staffing needs.

Particularly the older people who have settled and can't relocate. It's like age discrimination without all the annoying legal drawbacks.

This also filters for subservience.

Yeah, nowadays missing those brave hearts who would turn post lunch walks in to protest walks whenever they saw injustice in the world.