Yeah, based on behavior it does seem like Google's priorities were more (a) keeping layoffs from leaking in advance, (b) making it hard to predict from these layoffs who would be affected by future layoffs, and (c) having a big number to announce. Priorities were clearly not (a) short-term cost savings, (b) smoothing continuation of projects/planning, or (c) morale. Why these were the priorities, I can only speculate. It does seem short-sighted, but in a less clearly-understandable way than "this quarter's earnings".