Learn Russian: Мы не знаем, поможет ли сокращение сотрудников. - We do not know whether the reduction of employees will help.

In Russian, the particle ли acts like 'whether' or 'if' for indirect questions, but it cannot start a clause. It always immediately follows the exact word being questioned. Since the speaker is wondering if the reduction will help, the verb поможет comes first, directly followed by ли.

Could we change the word order to сокращение сотрудников ли поможет?

Grammatically yes, but it changes the meaning by shifting the focus. Placing сокращение before ли means you are questioning what will help: 'We do not know whether it is the reduction of employees (or something else) that will help.' By putting поможет first, the doubt is firmly placed on the action of helping itself.

Is сокращение сотрудников the normal way to talk about layoffs in Russian?

Yes, while it literally means 'reduction of employees', it is the standard business and journalistic term for 'downsizing', 'layoffs', or 'staff cuts'. In a work context, you will often hear it shortened to just сокращение.

Why use the perfective verb поможет here instead of the imperfective помогает?