Noble is not recruiting employees to move to Houston. Instead of doing additional layoffs they said they would be moving departments from Denver to Houston. They must be in some sort of financial trouble and stock prices continue to decline, in 2013 the year started off strong, shares were hovering right around $200 by May 2013 they had dropped to $50. Today, shares are topping out at $23. The last time their shares were below $23 was in February 2000, 17 years ago. This is a receipt for a failing company, a company looking for away out.
I don't think this is instead of doing additional layoffs. It's more doing layoffs while pretending to care. How many people are not able to move? I am sure they know that not everybody can just pack up and leave. They gave people a choice that really is not a choice for many of them. But hey, they were not laid off in the end, they chose to not take the offered option...