"1/4 of workforce was offered buyouts" does not mean all 60000 will accept them. "Results may vary", you know.
I saw it happening in a funny way not long time ago - company offered buyouts, but got insanely surprised when high percentage of people actually accepted it. Management thought acceptance rate would be much, much lower, but when numbers started to pour in on a 2nd day, oh man... Panic spread very quickly because people were accepting packages in fear of layoffs without such package, so management said if any layoffs will happen in 3 years period after this, same package will be offered no question asked. Cooled things a bit, but what a mess...
I saw it happening in a funny way not long time ago - company offered buyouts, but got insanely surprised when high percentage of people actually accepted it. Management thought acceptance rate would be much, much lower, but when numbers started to pour in on a 2nd day, oh man... Panic spread very quickly because people were accepting packages in fear of layoffs without such package, so management said if any layoffs will happen in 3 years period after this, same package will be offered no question asked. Cooled things a bit, but what a mess...