Given management of all companies (not just aviation) have a habit of lying...
how are the pax loads on average at HKA? If they are not good, I would bet that the real expansion plans are being scaled back, and they decided to "shave" pilot numbers to save some cost.
To decide who, comes politics (read nationality), "teamwork" (read "does he just suck it all up"), and ability (could be any definition) to decide who goes. Sadly, its rarely the latter that makes any difference.