The most ethical way to do it would have been to tell your candidates "We're hiring for excess capacity, so this would be a contract to hire position."

Then candidates might have made different decisions, like "Maybe this job isn't worth relocating my family internationally for."

It's pretty Machiavellian to present the role as otherwise, when HR had strong suspicions it'd be first on the chopping block.

Does a company have to do this? No. Of course not! And it's not even in their best interest to do it.

But does it make them ethically shitty to optimize their offer attractiveness at the expense of people's lives? In my book, yes.