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.