I think it just means "let go not because of individual performance" as opposed to "fired" meaning "let go because of bad individual performance." It think of

I think it just means "let go not because of individual performance" as opposed to "fired" meaning "let go because of bad individual performance." It think of it in the sense that you are talking about though because I grew up with a lot of people in the building trades. They often use "laid off" to mean basically "there's not enough work so I'm not getting hours until there is more" (eg temporary). But I think that is pretty specific to those industries where there is pretty fixed pool of labor and the work is highly seasonal.