What often happens is consultants/temps are leased to fill in temporary gaps. Short term it's cheaper (and faster) than hiring for permanent positions. And sur

What often happens is consultants/temps are leased to fill in temporary gaps. Short term it's cheaper (and faster) than hiring for permanent positions. And sure, people typically don't run on 100% capacity. What however seems to happen in many bigger orgs with vague performance metrics (as much of IT work is), some people do solid 60-80% productive work throughout the day, while some barely hover over 0%. So you have a kernel of workers pushing the cart and a bigger cohort of watercooler crowd. When peak load time comes the latter don't ramp up their productivity to 100%, but instead it's expected the employer should expand the staff. Nothing short of impending layoff rounds seem to affect this dynamic.