6 ms·

I don’t know if "fired" means something different in Britain, but the article says they were let go or laid off.

• rjsw 2y ago
  What does it mean in American?
  • sp332 2y ago
    Let go for cause. It has different severance and benefits status.
    • thejohnconway 2y ago
      "Let go" is a horrible euphemism, like the employee wants to go, but is being prevented from doing so. I'm setting you free employee! Enjoy your no job and no money! Reminds me of Bill Lumbergh in office space, "so if you could just go ahead and [thing Peter Gibbons really didn't want to do]".
  • rcstank 2y ago
    Fired means the role will be backfilled, and the employee was let go for performance reasons or whatever else. Laid off means the role won’t be backfilled. It could also mean the role was renamed, and they wanted to let the employee go but it looks better for everyone to say it was a layoff. Let go (at least to me) could mean either.
    • wccrawford 2y ago
      I think Fired means it could be backfilled, but I've seen plenty of instances where the company decided to restructure or do things differently instead of hiring someone else. Just because they were fired for cause doesn't mean the company wants to keep that job around afterwards. That said, it is unusual not to say 'laid off' these days unless the person was fired for cause, but the recently media frenzy around the term might have them saying other things instead.
• deleted 2y ago
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• jonathantf2 2y ago
  Isn't that what fired means?
  • _fat_santa 2y ago
    Fired = You did something wrong and were let go because of that thing Laid Off = You were let go for things outside your control (company downsizing, etc)
• deleted 2y ago
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• simonbarker87 2y ago
  In the UK this would be done as redundancies with a consultation period and semi-strict laws to adhere to. In the US it seems like you can let people go for at moments notice with little process - in the UK that looks like what we would call “being fired” generally for cause.
  • AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    No, the "for cause" distinction matters in the US as well. The difference is that a layoff can happen without notice.
  • Someone 2y ago
    Parts of the USA has at-will employment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment: “In United States labor law, at-will employment is an employer's ability to dismiss an employee for any reason (that is, without having to establish "just cause" for termination), and without warning, as long as the reason is not illegal (e.g. firing because of the employee's gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or disability status). When an employee is acknowledged as being hired "at will", courts deny the employee any claim for loss resulting from the dismissal. The rule is justified by its proponents on the basis that an employee may be similarly entitled to leave their job without reason or warning. The practice is seen as unjust by those who view the employment relationship as characterized by inequality of bargaining power. […] The doctrine of at-will employment can be overridden by an express contract or civil service statutes (in the case of government employees). As many as 34% of all U.S. employees apparently enjoy the protection of some kind of "just cause" or objectively reasonable requirement for termination that takes them out of the pure "at-will" category, including the 7.5% of unionized private-sector workers, the 0.8% of nonunion private-sector workers protected by union contracts, the 15% of nonunion private-sector workers with individual express contracts that override the at-will doctrine, and the 16% of the total workforce who enjoy civil service protections as public-sector employees.”
• tialaramex 2y ago
  Yes that's what "fired" means. My understanding is that this means the same thing in the US as in Britain, although Britain has much stronger labour protection so a lot of these whimsical "I'll just fire whoever I want" things can't fly here.
  • RobinL 2y ago
    In Britain, 'fired' usually implies a problem with individual performance whereas ,'made redundant' could be part of corporate restructuring. 'let go' is more ambiguous
    • philipov 2y ago
      In the US, they're complete synonyms. You say "laid off" if you're trying to be less direct about it. It's the same as saying someone "passed away" rather than "died"
      • mattkrause 2y ago
        No, the US usage is pretty similar to the UK senses: no one is “laid off” for stealing from the cash register or napping on the job. They get fired. OTOH, you could say that a division was “fired” or “laid off” and they’re almost interchangeable. “Fired” might carry the connotation that the specific division was underperforming while “laid off” could mean that it was due to some outside factor (e.g., half of R&D was laid off because manufacturing costs shot up)
        • philipov 2y ago
          Nah, we say someone got fired regardless of whether it was for cause or not. It's the go-to word for any kind of employer-initiated employment termination when you don't have to be nice about it. It's just that when someone was fired for stealing from the register, you're not going to be nice about it. Those R&D folks who got laid off are going to go home and complain about getting fired. It doesn't imply it's their fault - it implies that they're angry about it.
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• deleted 2y ago
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• mongonews 2y ago
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• jefftk 2y ago
  In casual speech it's common for people to use "fired" to cover both true firing and layoffs. It's not a great ambiguity, but when people talk about a whole team it's ~always a layoff.
• mdgrech23 2y ago
  Ah yea here in America you're employer and pretty much let you go for any reason and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. Layoffs imply they're not your fault and firing does but it has no real meaning and the terms are used interchangeably.
• rpmisms 2y ago
  I think that the BBC reporter probably thought that "fired" and "axed" are interchangeable, which they are not.
• paxys 2y ago
  In the US being fired means you had a job yesterday but involuntarily don't have one today. Most employment is at will, so the employer doesn't need a reason to discontinue your employment. It could be performance or cost savings or some mix of both. It could also be no reason at all. The specifics don't really matter. They also don't need to provide any severance in most states, no matter the reason. The "oh you weren't fired, you were laid off" line is manufactured by HR and is meaningless. If you come in to work one day and your boss decides they don't like the color of your shirt and shows you the door, were you fired or "laid off"?
• lamontcg 2y ago
  The title works fine for me. Using the word "fired" conveys to me that Elon walked into a room and fired everyone. Not that it was part of a months-long planned corporate restructuring process. zorg_fire_one_million_meme.gif