I think "made redundant" has been the British term for laid off for quite a while; though this is, IME, far less common in American usage. I think the distinction you are positing between them could be a good one to make, but I don't think its one that has ever been consistently applied in general usage of the terms in reference to business.

> In this case, the company is laying off a lot of its sales force and recruiting team while mumbling further content-free buzzwords about refocusing its strategy. Meaning, they aren't growing any more, so they won't be selling as much or recruiting as much.

Given that affected parts of the company are those most directly implicated in the regulatory violations that have produced the immediate problems, I wonder if there isn't another level of spin here, and whether this isn't more a set of firings to purge the problem units than a layoff.