Still with you here...
> They have a political and social role: hire as many people as possible.
You lose me here.
Most companies are out to make as much money as possible now or in the near future. I spent the first three years of my career in QA at a total BS Jobs company (120k+ employees, lots of government contract and enterprise software work). So many people coasted, nothing ever really got done, etc. Even in a totally dysfunctional organization like that, hiring was either about backfilling attrition losses or hiring people that were expected to directly or indirectly contribute to revenue growth.
Never attribute to a vast socio-political conspiracy that which can be explained by the emergent incompetence of a large organization.
