By that logic it's always fine for companies to get around labour protections.

Yes, it would be better if they hired no-one. When your job conditions are beneath human dignity, you don't get to hire people for that job, even if that means your stock price doesn't grow quite as much and GDP is lower this year.

I don't think workers generally agree with you. Certainly in the tech world, it is hard to describe contract work as "beneath human dignity". For blue collar work, I would understand your point.

> Certainly in the tech world, it is hard to describe contract work as "beneath human dignity".

Realistically in the US the distinction is mainly about whether you have medical coverage. Plenty of people work with no or bad medical coverage because they are some combination of optimistic/greedy/desperate; to assess how humane that is you'd have to look at how they feel about it after getting diagnosed with something that they struggle to get decent treatment for because they weren't an employee.

It's not "fine" but it's extremely hard to get them to do things they are disincentivized to do. And most government attempts do not result in the desired behavior.