I find working at USB IT lately very stressful. You constantly need to learn a new skill, support your application with on-call duties, plus there are night releases. Not a lot of consideration are going into sustainable pace and life balance during planning. Engineers encouraged to take more and more points per sprint. Oftentimes you hear we have aggressive schedule. Why not hire more people so everyone can work in sustainable pace and feel more happy and healthy? Less burnout equals to more creativity, productivity and joy.
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"Progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged. Let us preserve what can be preserved, perfect what can be perfected, and prune practices that ought to be prohibited."
Haven't you heard? "Change needs to be celebrated!"
Look, I'm all for change and adaptation but there needs to be a proper reasoning for it with a long-term goal.
Change for the sake of change is just plain stupid and is done only to keep middle managers (Directors etc.) on the payroll.
And change for the sake of change is exactly what is causing the stress and burnout you describe, OP.
The simple answer to your question is Gunjan and leadership are desperate for wins to buoy stock price and the easiest short-term win is to keep headcount as lean as possible to "manage expenses." They've never cared about company culture or employees' wellbeing. They must believe any fallout from low morale, burnout, brain drain, etc. is a can they can kick down the road until they get their golden parachute.