Comment by laughing_man

I've been through a few rounds of voluntary buy-outs at a big tech company. By far and away the people most likely to take the package are the people who aren't bothered by the prospect of finding another job. Some of them are delusional, but in most cases these are the younger, more dynamic employees with marketable skills who will be difficult to replace.

The people you'd want to see go, people who have been there forever and have gotten overly comfortable, people who may even hate their job, tend to stay because of 1) skill atrophy and 2) a (valid) concern about age discrimination.

Based on my own experience I don't think I'd ever do a voluntary buy-out were I running a company. The company comes out ahead when managers do their job and make the hard choices.