1. Hiring freeze, not attrition crisis

Headcount peaked at 246 in mid-2015 and declined to 207 by end-2018. The mechanism is neither layoffs nor an attrition spike: annual terminations fell from 23 (2015) to 8–13 (2017–2018). Annual turnover (3.6–9.9%) sits low by BLS 2019 labour-turnover data.

The mechanism

Three hypotheses for the net-negative trend, distinguished by the voluntary/involuntary split:

1. Layoffs would show an involuntary spike
2. Voluntary attrition surge would show voluntary climb
3. Hiring freeze would show both flat or falling — net loss from hires falling faster

The data fits the third.