> If its not symmetric then you bias towards status quo which is a really bad way to act as a CEO.

That doesn’t follow. It could just as easily bias a CEO towards over hiring, or finding ways to retrain existing employees, or any one of a million things that’s not the status quo.

It’s also possible that there currently exists pressure to push CEOs to lay off too many people and a little pressure in the opposite directions puts CEOs in a position where they are free to either layoff or hire as they see fit.

> Yeah that's not how a company should run

That should is attaching a moral judgement to this, and that’s not up to you. Many people think that the one of the primary purposes of a company is to provide employment. Even in the US our system makes it easier to hire someone than it is to fire them.