Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajaimk | Hacker News Reader

Mods please change the title. Layoffs and Firing aren't the same.

What makes this a firing and not a layoff (English is not my first language sorry)

Firing usually implies you're being terminated for cause. Laid off doesn't.

Firing is with targeted and with reason. A layoff is general, broad and non targeted. At least that is how I learned it.

I always understood that "layoff" has the implication that it's potentially temporary, and that the employees let go would be preferentially hired back if the company's fortunes improve.

That’s what lay-offs used to mean, even to the point it was common to layoff employees with an expected return date.

In the last 40 or so years the term has shifted to mean permanent termination.

Furlough would be more commonly used today to imply something temporary.

Super simplified: Firing is when the reason for the employee leaving is their fault. Layoff is when it's "the employers fault" (e.g. overstaffing etc).

That said, this article gives zero indication this is a firing, so I expect that your parent's comment is someone who is salty at Twilio and wants to make this sound "more vicious" -- 'firing' someone is a harsher sound than 'laying them off'. Plus, there's VERY few examples ever of significant staff cuts happened with _firings_. That would imply that 17% of Twilio did something so egregious at work that they got fired all simultaneously, which, like...how?

> Firing is when the reason for the employee leaving is their fault. Layoff is when it's "the employers fault".

That's not how I'd use those words. "Fired" just means your employment was involuntarily terminated. Layoffs are a type of firing, at least to my ears.

I suspect in some states, it might have implications for collecting unemployment. But given how almost all long term employment is "at will", there isn't really any meaningful distinction, except colloquially, I suspect.

Individuals get fired. Roles get laid off. Generally a firing will be followed by a backfill, whereas laying off means the workforce is being shrunk.

I don't see anything in the Twilio post that looks anything like a firing.

In some states this is legally enforced and if the company opens the position back up within 6 months of the layoff, the former employee needs to be offered the position back.

It’s a layoff. The title initially said “firing 17%”.

A layoff tends to mean that the job position that the person had is gone.

Firing a person tends to mean that the position will be hired for again once the person is gone.

Another way of looking at it:

Firing a person is terminating an individual working with a company - but the company still has that role to be filled.

Laying a person off is the elimination of the role, which also has the person leaving the company, but its the role that is being removed, not the person (they are free to apply for other positions in the company or get rehired later).

Laying off usually means the person's role is declared redundant, or in a department maybe a number of jobs are declared redundant rather than individual ones (i.e. a call centre finds it needs 20% fewer people manning the phones). There is no fault seen in the individual¹, it is seen as a matter of the state of the company, the market, or the economy as a whole.

When you are fired there is a direct implication of fault or failing to perform.

These things can vary a lot depending on local/state/country laws, but if you are laid off you may be entitled to a redundancy payment, you may be entitled to apply for other roles in the company², you will have a notice period which you will either work or go on gardening leave for, and so forth. If you are fired, none of this applies³. If you are in an work-at-will state things are a bit different. Gig economy jobs are a grey area in many places⁴.

[1] other than the implication that the people who kept the same/similar role are better or otherwise more useful to the company

[2] if the lay-offs are due to restructuring rather than downsizing

[3] except you have access to some sort of appeals process (for unfair dismissal for instance) which goes your way

[4] there are court cases and other investigations ongoing to determine/clarify what rights such workers do[n't] and should[n't] have

Yeah they are. Sugarcoat it all you want but when a company exits you then you have been fired/terminated/etc. It doesn't really matter. Sure they might treat you differently if you terminated for cause or not but when you lose your job you are fired. Laid off is a form of being fired, I guess.

Sure, insofar as you're defining the term as "you're no longer employed here." But that definition is not really all that helpful, and is equivalent to saying that you're fired because you quit, also.

There's absolutely a difference in widespread RIFs/layoffs and firing an employee, both in terms of how that individual is treated by future potential employers as well as the eyes of the law.

There’s voluntary termination and involuntary termination. Within involuntary there’s terminated for cause and terminated without cause. Laid off people are terminated without cause but are fired none the less because they are involuntarily dismissed (terminated) from a job. It’s not an official or legal term. It’s informal. But we’ve come up with other terms to make people feel better or not wound their pride or something. But the result is the same - you’ve been fired.

On an individual basis, sure. But this is not what we're talking about. This is a mass layoff, which absolutely does have special legal treatment. Sure, you can call it a mass firing if you'd prefer, and I suppose you'd be equally "correct," but then it's not clear what the goal of that clarification is besides making these people feel worse about the situation. Everyone knows what a layoff is. Nobody is confused, thinking that it was the employee's choice. We call it a layoff because it absolves the employee from fault in fewer words than "involuntary termination without cause."

If, however, you're suggesting that there is in fact no difference between individual involuntary termination without cause and a mass involuntary termination without cause, then the WARN act in CA is just one such counterexample, and very clearly treats "plant closing or mass layoff" as a specific event, separate from other types of involuntary termination without cause.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com