> Come up with a more, uh, positive reason for why you’re interviewing instead of disclosing that you were laid off.

I don’t understand this assertion, unless “laid off” now means “fired with cause”. People are laid off all the time, for no reason other than the company wants to reduce their labor costs.

Perhaps the author is assuming that the company is also making a judgement about their skills, e.g. that they’re somehow not up to some arbitrary standard? (I think that it is very easy to make this assumption, especially when laid off the first time.)

Anyway, there should be no need to give a potential employer a reason about why you were let go other than the position was eliminated.