I mean - these companies have a ton of workers, are hiring a lot, and have attrition. A recruiter/sourcer is not a job indirectly hired to "do nothing". They

I mean - these companies have a ton of workers, are hiring a lot, and have attrition. A recruiter/sourcer is not a job indirectly hired to "do nothing". They make headcount goals for growth with forward looking expectations, every big company hired hundreds/thousands of recruiters and then one day/week when expectations weren't so rosy basically cut off hiring. So they weren't hired "to do nothing", just that what they were doing was de prioritized. I suspect because they are cheaper than engineers working on a cut program they probably weren't in a rush to reallocate or downsize.