Are the number of employees / speed of hiring / firing good indicators of future stock performance? Or a result of?

Hi what do you guys think? I read this piece which gave me another idea of stock analysis that I never used before. For public companies, employee count might be a result of dip in value, but for less-discussed or non-public companies, the no. of employees could be prophesying its future performance. The piece here

I'm in stock trading field, and want to get this sub's opinion. Hope its the right place!