On a the new hires. It makes me think the layoffs were more about old timers and money. They could have cross-trained people to do other things. Unless it is a very specific job people can be cross-trained. This is especially true in the world of IT for example. If they see they need a job then look harder at the people to cross-train and move to other jobs. Given the opportunity workers might just surprise you.
This seems to be modus operandi for a lot of companies these days, so it would not surprise me at all that Anadarko is one of them. The first thing they go for when cutting operational costs is experienced workers who have earned their raises over the years. What they don't get is that getting rid of experienced folks will harm the company in the long run. But who cares, right. The quarter results looked good, and that's all that matters.