This is not always the case. Didn't some company just shutter their German office? Probably that hit whites harder.

But it's plausible that layoffs would hit certain groups harder right now. If your company had a big affirmative action push after the summer of 2020, you might have a bunch of junior minority employees. Perhaps they would be let go sooner than more senior employees or employees who not hired via an affirmative action program.

If they shut down their german office, the people working there will get fired. If they're firing junior (developers,...), they're firing junior developers.. probably starting with least performing ones or whatever metric they use for firings. Using race as any metric is in my eyes totally racist. This is also true for hiring and "affirmative action".

In large, because minorities are likely under represented in management. And it is well established that, if there are not minorities in the selecting process, than you can expect them to be selected more for stuff like this. Even if, objectively, they are no worse than the majority.

So, again, the wording is poor. And if they are just choosing who to let go based on race, that is bad. However, it makes sense to take an active oversight to make sure you don't have white managers, for example, just letting go all of their black reports. (And the reverse is also true. Though, again, likely not as prevalent. Not because minority people can't have prejudices; but because they are likely underrepresented in the roles. )