"We are cutting jobs because the magic robots will do the work instead" looks better to investors than "we are sacrificing long-term growth for a short-term pro

"We are cutting jobs because the magic robots will do the work instead" looks better to investors than "we are sacrificing long-term growth for a short-term profit sugar rush" or "we have insufficient customers" (generally you lay off r&d etc for the former, and operations due to the latter), or, even worse, "we dramatically overhired". This is hardly new; there's usually _some_ sort of excuse for layoffs, because none of the _common_ causes are particularly attractive to the markets on their face, but if dressed up a bit the markets do _usually_ fall for them.