Human Face of Capitalism!

Just when I logged into blogger.com to enter today's entry I came across a sensational news....Jet Airways laid off 850 of it's flight attendants. The total Flight Attendant work force in Jet Airways was 1903 by last week & almost 50% of them will be axed now. Most of them were on probation or were in the organization for less than 1.5 years. Considering today's economic & market situation this sounds logical business decision & even the leading Indian Newspaper put its view in support of this lay off.
But such a drastic decision points that India Inc. still needs to learn a lot. India is booming & going to be a Super Power in next few years but should we not learn from the mistakes of other super powers in the world? This is especially true in case when enthusiastic management go ahead with hiring spree, when we have huge number of surplus employee who were hired in the name of backup plan. I remember a personal experience when it was just the start of my career. After passing out of college in my first job I was being layed off within 3-4 months of joining. Rather there were 50% of the hired employee from our team were laid off in a night...reason - the company lost one of it's client & they had to reduce the workforce. There was a catch in this organization's HR Policy though that they will give you training & will put you on production based upon your scores in the assessment after training. The one's who can go ahead would be paid the salary during the training period & the rest would be sent home. Thus the salary even for training period used to be given only after you went on production & if you fail you will be sent home without a single penny. So those 50% from my team who were sent home after the assessment(including me) were not paid a single penny during those 3-4 months. Can you call this an ethical business? Is it even legal for that matter?
I am giving this example just to point out that negative professional approach which most of the companies follow. They will go ahead with Hiring spree without considering the actual productivity requirement of themselves. You might need to put some % workforce as reserve is understood but that amount should be as minimum as possible because with large reserve work force you are not just spending shareholder's money extravagantly but are ruining the career of that eligible employee who might have to suffer in such lay off situation. Even that Lay Off supporting Leading Indian News Paper has mentioned "There is evidence in other countries that show that when industry is given the flexibility to reduce workforce during a severe downturn, it is quick to hire during an upturn." This is that approach which I am talking about. Be it upturn or downturn if the foundation of the organization is strong & if the policies being followed are truly professional then there is no need for hazardous hiring spree during upturn or such massive lay off during downturn.(Of course extreme situations can be spared.)
I really wonder the way share market reacts or organizations react to any event i.e. they will be over confident during boom(e.g. Dot Com Boom in the 90s) or will be in fatal panicky when the boom bubble busts(e.g. today's US Credit Crisis). For any organization employee are the most valuable asset of the company, so that asset has to be utilized & cherished with full care. Hence it is very much important that we should utilize our human resources in the best possible way. Decisions can be right or wrong, people can come or go but we must remember that everything is human centric & in the end whatever will be given might return back to us!!!