Many workers were laid off/fired/sacked

"Laid off" usually means due to business reasons. You can be fired for misconduct. Neither automatically means severance pay, but people who are laid off are more likely to get a severance package.

I believe laws vary significantly from place to place about what a company is required to do.

Grammar Geek"Laid off" usually means due to business reasons. You can be fired for misconduct. Neither automatically means severance pay, but people who are laid off are more likely to get a severance package.

I believe laws vary significantly from place to place about what a company is required to do.

Thanks, GG, for your sensible reply.

Sacked is British, so I'll leave it to a Brit to answer.

Sacked is the same as fired in British English.

Laid off would mean 'made redundant' here - and they would get severance pay (redundancy money) if they qualified. They lost their jobs but there is no implication that it was due to any fault of theirs, it was a business decision to get rid of the job rather than the individual person.

Fired/sacked - the company got rid of that individual, usually due to some fault of theirs.

Hi,

'Laid off' sometimes means that the worker may be asked to come back to work if business improves.

For example, in Canada the car plants lay off the night shift employees when car sales are down, and then restart the night shift when sales improve.

Clive

Thanks, my kind and helpful, for the abundant info.

Got it.