Fired/laid off

[Words4theWorld]

I have just read NecessaryCatharsis' thread about her co-workers crazy wife in the Advice forum. At the end she mentioned that her co-worker wasn't fired but laid off. I always thought that "to fire" and "to lay off" were basically interchangeable, but it seems I was mistaken. So could you please explain to a non-native speaker what's the difference between the two?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Layoffs have the possibility of being asked to return. They can happen in factory, construction or corporate environments when there isn't enough work for the staff they currently have, but there may be a need for more people later.

You probably won't be asked to return later if you're fired.

A layoff can also be a "soft firing" by letting somebody go, not intending to call them back, and not challenging unemployment benefits, if any. This could be what happened to NC's co-worker.

[Deserted]

To phrase it another way, to get laid off often (but not always) means "let go to reduce payroll", while getting fired is more along the lines of "let go for negative reasons".

[NecessaryCatharsis]

They are correct. In this case he was laid off (which is what it says on his record of employment) because
1) He wanted to leave and we wanted him gone
2) He can now collect unemployment
so
3) He won't challenge it in any way.

If it said fired or quit on his record of employment he would have some hoops to jump through to qualify for unemployment benefits. He could also challenge the firing, bring in the labour board and make a nuisance of himself for a while and possibly cost the company money. The only way to challenge being laid off is if
1) The company keeps people with less seniority and skills, then those people should have been laid off first.
or
2) They start hiring for your old position without calling you back from layoff first

It is the end of our busy season so we won`t be rehiring for a while and at that time will consider him to be otherwise engaged. The only way he can cause trouble now is if he comes back in the fall wanting his job back when the hiring ads show up around here.



To make it even more confusing I worked for another company whose slow season was mid January - end of March. Everyone was laid off for that time, then called in as needed. We all qualified for and received employment benefits, then the government would reduce them based on hours we actually worked. So if I qualified for $500/week of benefits, and had earned $200 working that week the government would pay me $300 for the week. Usually once we had worked around 25-30 hours for the week our government benefit was nothing, but it helped the employees get through the slow time. Then we`d be back to work full time, until next year.

Did that help or make it worse?

[MoonCat]

One other note, when the laid-off worker is covered by a collective bargaining agreement, if a position opens up that within that same union and the worker is qualified for it, the company must offer the job to them before trying to find someone new to fill that job.

[Seshat]

Fired: you did something wrong.
Laid off: you did nothing wrong, the company just doesn't need anyone in your position.

Layoffs happen much as several other posters have said: a company is closing a part of their business, or there's a slow time of year, or a company decides to reduce its workforce.

Also, sometimes you can be laid off as a 'gentle firing'. I was laid off from my job when I became disabled: my bosses knew it wasn't my fault, but I was also unable to do my job for the foreseeable future so they couldn't keep me on.
They didn't want to fire me - a firing would make it harder for me to get work when I became well. (Which, sadly, hasn't happened yet and it's been almost a quarter century. Alas.)

[Words4theWorld]

Thanks a lot for all the explanations, everything was really helpful. I am now aware of the differences between the two terms, but there still is a diffifult aspect, as basically all the terms I can think of in German say that if you're let go, you're let go.
The concept of reducing the work force during slow times is of course prevalent in Germany too, but the procedures are different it seems. I have to check that, because my linguistic curiosity has been piqued.

[Sapphire Silk]

America is more lawsuit happy than Germany is, I have no doubt. It used to be fired was fired: there was no laid off.

The term comes from slowdowns in manufacturing in the 70's, when union workers would be "laid off" work either during contract negotiations, or to save jobs (since they weren't technically fired) during a slowdown. The workers would eventually be recalled to the job. In the meantime, they usually got a reduced paycheck from the company, or unemployment insurance since they were off work for reasons beyond their control.

Later, employers started using lay offs to get rid of employees they didn't want to go through the process of firing. Firing means your decision might come under scrutiny, and you might have to defend an unjust termination. Lay off means the employee at least can collect severance or unemployment, making it more likely a troublesome employee will go away quietly and not drag you into court or file a formal grievance. American workers are more likely to fight a termination if they feel they were treated unfairly than 100 years ago when there was 10 applicants for every job, and no one wanted to risk getting black balled (now black balling is illegal).

Also, if the employee knows they were a bad employee, a lay off makes it much more likely they can get a new job than getting fired does, so again, they're more likely to roll with it and take the lay off so they get a good recommendation when they're job hunting.

Ironically, the opposite CAN happen; sometimes the employer will fire a good employee rather than lay them off because they don't want the employee to collect unemployment insurance payments. Employers pay into the system; if an employee collects, the employer loses money in extra premiums to make up the difference. That happened to me once; the hospital was in bad financial trouble and I was let go under "last hired, first fired." Nothing wrong with my performance, the hospital just couldn't afford to keep paying me and needed to move other nurses into my job. I was just shy of finishing my probation period and had no write ups, but they didn't owe me severance because I was short of 90 days. However, I was owed unemployment payments. They didn't want to pay up. So they "fired me." I talked to a labor lawyer, and sent them a demand letter: turn the termination into a lay off with "eligible to rehire" so I could find another job or I'd take them to court.

They caved.

They also closed several years later. Couldn't compete with the other hospital in town.