It depends on whether those few months or years were enough time to earn back the value invested in training newly hired employees. If an additional employee i

It depends on whether those few months or years were enough time to earn back the value invested in training newly hired employees. If an additional employee in a busy year can make more money for the company than it costs to hire, train, and employ that person, then the company can be expected to hire them and fire them when it's no longer as busy. That's not wasting money, that's making money. I'm fortunate to work for a small shop with business values that include metrics like retention that aren't tied to making shareholders money, including a goal of "never have to lay people off". And we haven't, in 35 years of operation, through major upswings and downturns. We're aware that this makes us less financially competitive for sure in the short term and arguably in the long term, but we're OK with this compromise and others, because we'd rather take care of our people than win the rat race. But we're the exception, not the rule.