The sentence clearly tries to compare the number of laid-off people with the number of hired people.
A. equivalent to the hiring in
The word “equivalent” generally implies that two things are similar in quality or function, and “hiring” generally refers to an entire group of hired employees as a collective. Hence this choice is literally stating that 10,000 laid-off employees are “similar in quality or function” to the collective group of hired employees. That makes no sense.
We could perhaps say “one highly skilled employee is equivalent to 3 unskilled ones” in the sense that skilled employee is thrice as productive as 3 unskilled ones. However, that’s not the case here. This sentence simply compares the number with the number.
B. the
equivalent of those hired in
The same issue as in A. We can probably say that “those” refers to “employees” and once again we will be saying that one group of people is similar to another group of people in terms of qualification, skills, knowledge, experience, and such. However, this is not what the sentence is trying to say. The only difference between A and B is that “equivalent of” is a noun while “equivalent to” is an adjective with identical meaning.
C. as many as
the hiring ofD. as many as
the hiring inLet’s juxtapose C and D because they are much alike and similarly illogical.
1. “as many as” makes much sense because now we can infer that the number is compared with the number. However, “as many as” disagrees with “the hiring” because “hiring” is a collective noun and uncountable in this case.
2. another issue is that “the hiring of” is parallel with nothing.
3. when we have “somebody did A as many as B” with parallel elements A and B, the implied meaning is “somebody did A as many as he did B”. For example “John has as many books as pens”, then we mean that “John has as many books as he has pens”. Here the second verb “has” is usually omitted but implied.
Similarly, if we say “X laid-off 1000 people, as many as the hiring” without a verb, then the meaning can be ambiguous:
- Is it “X laid-off 1000 people, as many as the hiring laid-off people” ?
- Or “X laid-off 1000 people, as many as X laid-off the hiring” ?
We need a verb to avoid such ambiguity, and E gives this verb:
E. as many as
were hired in
“X has laid-off 1000 people, as many as were hired” – no ambiguity. Good.
Hence
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Everything is relative, including relativity itself.