Having seen layoffs during 2001 and 2008-2009, we may expect the following to hold true during the upcoming layoffs (I am 100% certain there will be cuts across the board):
- Non-essential administrative and support staff (e.g. marketing, IT, benefits)
- Non-billing research and thought leadership staff
- Consultants (at all levels) on performance improvement plans or with poor ratings
- Consultants (at all levels) with low utilization and/or low margins (i.e. consultants who are expensive but have generally not been billable at high rates).
MD's/Partners' pets that fall into any of these categories will get snuck onto a billable project (qualified or otherwise) just long enough to see the "culling" subside.
The most at-risk group are expensive resources that don't directly bill or own pursuits such as Managers, technical specialists (e.g. a high comp. technical architect in an increasingly commoditized area), etc.
They'll usually spare first year analysts until they're sure they can't use them as replacements for more expensive resources on a project.