You’re right, the holding pool is there for when things ramp up, they might as well re-title it to “expressions of interest”.
It’s not really a job opportunity but more of an indication to management that people are interested and therefore a reduction in conditions of service will probably be acceptable.
CX did it in 2018 and I guess EK is looking at doing the same.
For example 1000 people applied based on the current COS as advertised, EK lowers the COS by 30%, how many pilots will still be interested? Probably not the 1000 people waiting but still enough for them to keep the show going.