30 people were "culled from the heard" the week of May 18th 2015. Additionally from September 15th to October 15th, 2014 approx 104 people "departed", globally. Two on my team in that period, at least 12 on the last Friday of Q3 2014 - that's not "Performance Related"!
When someone's terminated, HR has to do it, benefits updated, payroll notified, equipment accounted for and returned, email/domain access cut-off... There's dedicated distribution lists and those people talk. I heard the same number from multiple primary sources across different departments for the Sept/Oct 2014.
CRUEL and BACKHANDED
Interactive doesn't call it a layoff. Some people are outright fired without warning, others forced to resign in a variety of ways. One popular method is a "Performance Plan" that includes language like "Unfortunately we don't think you'll be successful with this plan which will result in your termination. We'd encourage you to strongly consider an alternative and that is to resign. We're sure you recognize a voluntary resignation will look better than a termination to prospective employers ... you must render your decision in 3 business days". This is for employees who've never received negative feedback - this is the FIRST conversation/warning about ANY short-comings. No performance review, no informal "you should work on this, you could've done that better". Again, with multiple people on a team, a dozen in a day or 5% of the company in a month - at the end of the quarter - it's not about performance. Sorry, but don't lie about it too!