A company accused of downsizing, defended itself with the following statement "Yes, we were forced to lay off 20% of our workforce last year, but this year we increased our workforce by 20% and we therefore now have the same number of employees as before the layoff." What is the flaw in this argument?

If the company had 1,000 employees and laid off 20%, they laid off 200 people and kept 800.

But increasing 800 by 20% means they hired 160 people.

800 + 160 does not equal 1,000.

question is unloaded

The flaw in this argument is that it assumes that increasing the workforce by 20% can compensate for the previous layoff of 20%. However, this assumption overlooks the fact that the percentage increase is based on the current reduced workforce, not the original number of employees. Therefore, even with the 20% increase, the company would still have fewer employees than before the layoff.

The flaw in this argument is related to the concept of percentages. When the company says they laid off 20% of their workforce and then increased their workforce by 20%, they are assuming that the two percentages cancel each other out, resulting in having the same number of employees as before the layoff. However, this assumption is incorrect.

To understand why, let's break it down step by step:

1. Let's say the company initially had 100 employees.
2. Laying off 20% of the workforce means reducing the number of employees by (20/100) x 100 = 20 employees.
3. After the layoff, the company would have 100 - 20 = 80 employees.
4. Now, if they increase the workforce by 20%, they would be adding (20/100) x 80 = 16 employees.
5. The total number of employees after the increase would be 80 + 16 = 96 employees.

Therefore, after the layoff and subsequent increase, the company doesn't have the same number of employees as before. Instead, they have 96 employees, which is 4 employees fewer than the initial count.

So, the flaw in the company's argument is that they mistakenly assumed that increasing the workforce by the same percentage as the layoff percentage would result in the same number of employees as before. However, due to the mathematical nature of percentages, this assumption is incorrect.