This is called work piling. The unit of work isn't whatever people want it to be, it's jobs, meaning entire human beings. During a recession it rarely makes sense to keep people employed at full capacity, maybe you only need each person at 50%. So the obvious solution is to just fire 50% of the workers.

You now have a segment of the population with enough work and another with too little. Those with work are scared of losing the job. Those without are desperately trying to compete in the labor market to get a new job.

https://youtu.be/EKd6WURBqOY