One reason for this is that it's hard to measure the value of an individual employee's contribution to the company [0], but it's easy to measure their cost. Sin

One reason for this is that it's hard to measure the value of an individual employee's contribution to the company [0], but it's easy to measure their cost. Since things that are easy to measure get weighted more highly [1], companies tend to see employees as costs rather than assets. [0] except sometimes for salespeople who bring in big accounts, which is why salespeople in many companies are better compensated than engineers. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy