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I think we may be hitting an issue in translation between English and American; in British English "fired" implies "for cause", while a "blameless" process of h
by pjc50 1y ago
I think we may be hitting an issue in translation between English and American; in British English "fired" implies "for cause", while a "blameless" process of headcount reduction is known as "redundancy". "Job losses" is a perfectly reasonable neutral phrase here. Indeed, under UK law and job contracts you generally cannot just chuck someone out of their job without either notice or cause or, for large companies, a statutory redundancy process.
People like to make too much out of active/passive word choices. Granted it can get very propagandistic ("officer-involved shooting"), but if you try to make people say "unhoused" instead of "homeless" everyone just back-translates it in their head.
- nsxwolf 1y agoI think American English is the same colloquially. “I got fired” means I didn’t perform or did something wrong. “I got laid off” is our “I was made redundant”. “Fired” is also a technical term for both cases, in academic/economist speak.
- pseudalopex 1y agoFired means terminated for any reason to many Americans. And academics, economists, and lawyers avoid it in my experience.
- iamacyborg 1y ago> Indeed, under UK law and job contracts you generally cannot just chuck someone out of their job without either notice or cause or, for large companies, a statutory redundancy process. This is only true when an employee has worked for a company for 2 or more years
- thaumasiotes 1y ago> in British English "fired" implies "for cause", while a "blameless" process of headcount reduction is known as "redundancy" OK. I was fired for no stated cause in a process that didn't involve headcount reduction, or the firing of anyone except me specifically. (The unstated cause seems to have been that I had been offered a perk by the manager who hired me that the new manager didn't want to honor after the original guy was promoted.) How would you describe that, in British English?
- pjc50 1y ago"Breach of contract"? "Sacked" would probably work colloquially.