It isn't a driver of the decision. Who gets fired is a detail that gets worked out after the fact.
Leadership, based on their understanding and information make the decision to cut 500 and create a mandate to make it so. Then management is forced to decide who gets the axe.
It would basically be impossible to drive the decision the other way. You can't asses every individual for necessity. What would the threshold even be? The threshold depends on the number of people you want to fire.
There is no super computer that can calculate the outcome from firing \ 499 workers vs 500