you cant fire people by email inEeurope with no notice
To fire someone from a permanent position you must have 2 written warnings on record, and then dismissal can happen or you go to the Labour court with notice of collective redundancies (which stops a company hiring back, if you make people redundant and then expand you must offer the original people their jobs back), this step was skipped.
This resulted in people being fired by email (grey area legally), and un-fired (again by Email), giving a nice impressing of calming stability. So the most talented are looking for jobs immediately, which means what he will be left with are the people who couldn't jump ship in time.