Seriously, we all live in a potemkin village. This is why we are in such deep shit. Companies hire people so that other companies can't have them? That's a fucked up business strategy. Hiring thousands of people to do “fake work” in order to hit hiring metrics out of “vanity.” What do these people actually do? They go to meetings. Ummm..... Another way to look at this is the broken window fallacy. In this case, you take potentially productive people and ensure they can't be productive.