Well Diablo - if enough people take the options you mention - then there wouldn't be any need for compulsories, would there? So why "come out" and say it if it's not necessarily true? We had the same problem recently and due to option takers, the number of forced redundancies was reduced by half.
Some wierdos (not necessarily you, Diablo)think that managers actually enjoy making people redundant - well I suppose it suits them to think that.