This vendor claims that they can service their customers with 21k less employees... in the same quality?

Our economy is a fraud.

Years ago I worked for a company in a consortium that put in a bid for a government contract. The government agency said the amount quoted was a bit high, and was there any way they could bring the cost down a bit. The consortium re-submitted essentially the same work as before but at something like a quarter of the cost of the first one. The government agency told them what they could do with their bid, and to never submit anything to them again.