Would a company nudge employees to leave?

Would a company nudge employees to leave? I'm working as a software developer at the parent company of a largish multinational company in Europe. In the past couple of years at company "townhall" events a recurring theme was that although the company as a whole is profitable, the parent company is not and "steps must be taken". As far as I know, hundreds of people were laid off in the past two years. We were told that there are no (immediate) plans for further layoffs. However, we were also told that the budget of our directorate stays the same for the next two years, so either there won't be a pay rise (even though there's some inflation that might justify it) or some people will be laid off to get funds for other people's pay rise. Also in the past few months the behaviour of the management seems less friendly (I wouldn't say outright hostile, it's not that bad). Home office rules were tightened, working computer surveillance is introduced, more time reporting is required, etc. Management says they want to get increased productivity out of this, but sometimes I feel like they are trying to make the environment uncomfortable enough for people to leave on their own as it's cheaper than firing them. I actually did look around, but the job market is fairly bad right now :-( By the way, in the same period the company stock price quadrupled(!). I understand that shareholders might like the layoffs (less money is spent by the company), but this price increase seems to indicate that the company is healthy and in no dire need of layoffs. Do companies really try to nudge employees to leave?