[EricHolden12]

Companies over hired during the pandemic because they issued stock to new employees to artificially boost their share price.

[jsnell]

That really is not how this works. Issuing shares decreases the share price, rather than increase.

[filoleg]

Yeah, you typically increase the share price "artificially" by doing stock buybacks, not by handing out more shares to new employees.

[roncesvalles]

Companies don't need to hire people to issue new stock. They can do it anytime.

People forget these days but the entire point of the stock market is to give companies a money-printing machine. More accurately, it's an on-demand way of obtaining investment by sucking up value from the people who hold your shares.