If your company is run well, you're incentivized to do more with less. If not, then the opposite.
Shareholders want the CEO and Company to do the best job they can, and do it with the lowest employee cost possible
You do not acknowledge different industries or business models, distribution of physical goods or market brand activity, let along "things that take more that one person to do" .. This is a rote recital of an inner dialog of an ill "investor" CEO who might as soon throw his secretary off of a bridge than give a bonus for winter holidays.
There are not enough words to scourge this infantile, Ayn Randian nonesense from the page.
Do you think people in 1000 bc hired more employees than they needed just maximize headcount. Of course not. You want enough to get the job done and not more.
Egypt had shops and Merchants too.
Can you think of any time between then and now where things worked that way?
At the least, don’t hire thousands of people over 1-2 years and then lay them all off. That shows poor ethical, leadership and management skills.
I do think hiring a bunch of people and then firing a bunch of people is indicative of some sort of mistake. Nobody can perfectly predict the future. That said, when someone takes a job they know it's not a lifetime tenure position and has some risk.
>Employees are merely, an often undesired, side-effect in the business of boosting stock prices.
Employees are worse than a side effect, they're a cost center to be avoided if possible. You want to achieve your goals with as few employees as possible.