Many people buy Reddit Premium to get rid of ads. Each month also grants you 700 coins, which is enough to award a gold and two silvers. Receiving a gold gives you enough coins to give a silver (I think, I don't remember the exact ratio). That is where a ton of awards come from.
Employees do get free gold to hand out, but the ratio isn't as high as you'd think.
I fully admit it's a baseless conspiracy theory :) Perhaps it happened in the early days to get traction if not now, or perhaps not, but anyway thanks for the information.
My personal conspiracy theory right now is that they're behind 90% of awards on posts. It costs them nothing and normalises the behaviour.