At this point I would not be surprised if there isn't an "AI" tool that looks across employees by salary range, department earnings, seniority and age and just generates a list at a moments notice. I was around for a desperate layoff at a small company in the early 2ks and got to watch as management basically ran around the office doing this logic in real time. Some people are get pulled in because they aren't high performing or they're unliked, but most was a simple expense/income calculation.