East an experienced controller is given a maximum of 40 days to validate.
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Whow ! ..also in Dubai or Abu Dhabi Approach, or ACC for instance ? In my old unit ( MUAC) it took and it still take around a year to be fully qualified . It is roughly the same in the major German units so I would expect the same in LATCC , but wait to be contradicted.
in a small Tower with less than 100 Mvts a day, possibly yes. but for en-route ? You can probably train someone in one sector only in a short period of time but he/she will become useless most of the time in a large Centre.
Stopping recruitment and letting older staff go in time of crisis has been done before , even massive lay off . ( e.g. PATCO USA 1981) it always took years to rebuild to previous capacity levels as the vast majority do not come back . In USA it took 2 decades to rebuild the system to his previous capacity. 6 days on one day off and 50h weeks were the norm` for many years in most units in the US .. .in Belgium it was even 11 days on one day off to cater for staff shortages...
The future does not look too good for ATC in the next years... I feel sorry for you guys still active...