Labour as a Commodity

I am reading Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton, and I ran across a nugget that I want to share.

On the two divergent imperatives: the economic imperative, which dictates that the primary task of business is to realize a profit; and the human imperative, which causes employees to hunger for financial security, respect and tenure.

de Botton correctly points out that for long periods these two imperatives can coexist happily, however when a company is faced with uncertainty, the economic imperative will always win out.

So if labour is just another input, like raw materials and machinery, the only thing that actually separates it from say a computer, is labour's human quality.