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If investors see layoffs and judge that the company just became more valuable, either they are right or they are wrong.

If they are right, then isn't the job of management, in a principle fundamental to the US economic system, to follow their wishes? Management doesn't have to do whatever investors ask for, but there is no real justification for them to do something which is both against their wishes and against the interests of the company.

If they are wrong, then surely the problem is that most US companies are having their decision-making driven by a group of people who are paramount but who are making misguided or misinformed decisions. Any tweaking of the exact incentives which doesn't solve this problem is both a distraction and subject to the law of unintended consequences.

Note that I am not strongly in favor of either sweeping layoffs or of the specific US variant of capitalism in general. I just think that one should be honest about to what extent problems are unavoidable to the extent that one cleaves to a given system.