numbers mean nothing in my opinion. you see horrible pilots with 3000 hours and good pilots with 800.
Of course I am talking about hand eye coordination, skills, the ability to fly an airplane.
But to make a good decision you need experience. and you get experience when your ass is in the cockpit, prerefably on the left
I have always thought that 1000 hours as a minimum was ridiculous. what you did during those 1000 hours says everything. Did you do S turns in c 152 with only private pilot students, or did you tow banners or maybe you had a lot of instrument students.
I had 75 hours of multi when I got my job. 80% of that was cruise flight, no
MEI instruction, no failures, no maneuvers. Those 75 hours did not mean much IMO.
Airlines need to establish standards and guidelines to select poeple, but what they use are just numbers and they means nothing unless you know what kind of experience was acquired during those hours.