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I think it all depends on wording. EY's official blog statement talked about helping the employees find new jobs, which is impressive. To me, it would also be beneficial for them to include a statement like Ezra's above, to ease customer or potential customer concerns: They laid of support staff because they have further automated their environment - that is reassuring.

As a customer I'm glad they are laying off people. They charge far more than they should for the resources you get, and it seemed like they had way too many employees than they needed. Our sales rep was totally clueless and gave us bad information several times - I wonder if he is still there..

Anecdotally, I'm shopping around for a Rails host right now and being reminded of Engine Yard because of this article increases my chance of going with them.

If the layoffs had been 50% I would be worried, but at this level it doesn't trouble me as a potential customer.