I am not so sure about "replace" atleast at my company we are always short staffed (mostly cause we cant find people fast enough given how long the whole interview cycle takes). It might actually free some people up to do more interviews.
That's a great point actually. Nearly everywhere (us included) is short-staffed (and by that I mean we don't have the bandwidth to build everything we want to build), so perhaps it's not a "reduce the team size" but rather a "reduce the level of deficit."