Its important because the more employees a companies has, the more overhead it has, in the form of salaries, and in the services to support the employees, healthcare, etc. The company also loses its ability to iterate quickly, to rapidly respond to change etc. This would be fine, if revenue was to increase proportionally, but if this does not occur (as the article found) then companies are more susceptible to market changes, and its easier to lose more faster. Its the "beginning of the end" as the article put it.