If an employee is unproductive they can be fired. Layoffs are how you get rid of employees that are productive without having to make up some justification because it lowers your costs and increases the stock price, which rewards the executives.
If the employees are productive, then why would laying them off increase the stock price?
Sometimes the employee is in a low-revenue generating area where their department head is asked to cut headcount by 40%
Because the stock market likes reductions to costs and doesn't think past the current quarter.
This is one of the stupidest arguments I have ever heard. Amazon was worth a fortune even though if made no money for almost 20 years since investors anticipated future profits.
This is a well known problem with the public markets. It is stupid, but your ire should be reserved for the markets themselves not the person pointing out the stupidity.