Sorry for the recipients of these calls, they should have just been told it was a layoff and given what dignity they can muster to move forward.
The good news is almost all unemployment claims that challenge a "for-cause termination" have a pretty high threshold for employers to prove should employees challenge the reason for their termination. Company is obviously doing layoffs not for cause terms, these go in employees favor 99.9% of time especially when a company as vague and stammering as this know they have no leg to stand on. Lots of times what employer communicated to Employment Department may be a layoff anyway so what they're ignorantly doing is just making the process needlessly painful for exiting employees.
A good lesson to learn is don't give more to a company or yourself than they would give to you, and most of them you don't exist on a whim.