San Diego Union-Tribune lays off 178

Wouldn't they be smart enough to know that if a couple of hundred people are fired at once, that it had little, if anything, to do with job performance?

 

Maybe. Or they could be newspaper executives and would then obviously be clueless.

 

The media has an obligation to be as unambiguous as possible, to include using language that has become the dominant and widely understood parlance of modern times.

 

Point well taken.

 

Baron is redlining every sports section that mentions a player being "cut" or "released," because in reality that player was fired.

 

Cut and released are the exact same thing as being fired. No ambiguity, unlike "layoffs", which imply that the worker will be brought back at some point.

"Placed on waivers" is accurate because, while the result is usually the same with the player being released or cut, waivers can be recalled.

 

In other language news, "exact same thing" means the exact same thing as "same."

 

Perhaps it used to imply that when we were a manufacturing economy. It doesn't imply that anymore and hasn't for some time.

When I hear, "Bank of America to lay off 3,000", I do not expect any of them to be temporary. "Fired" means "you did something wrong"; "laid off" means "our company is struggling or our shareholders are howling and we need to cut payroll costs."

Hmmm . . . sounds like Bob Norman's Daily Pulp from the Miami New Times.

 

I was acquainted many years ago with employees who were "laid off" from factory jobs with International Harvester and Caterpillar, then indeed were called back when business picked up. But that was a long time ago, and the connotation is certainly much different now. There's only one instance I'm aware of locally of a "laid-off" newspaper employee returning to the paper -- but it was on a part-time basis, and the rehiring wasn't automatic; the ex-employee had to go through a reapplication process.

Won't confirm the identity of the alternative weekly reporter in question, but he did do some solid reporting on job cuts and other newsroom matters and was quite aggressive in calling out and embarrassing upper management.

 

That's the thing, when did the connotation change, who changed it, and why did everyone let them get away with it?

 

I was part of a large layoff in 2008 when my position, along with others, was eliminated, then rehired about a month later because two reporters had left for new jobs in the interim.

It was for a different position, but I was told they had to look at the layoff list first when hiring.

I left a few years later after the paper was sold and got rid of a bunch of people and someone was recalled from the layoff list to take my former spot.

 

It changed when we changed from a manufacturing economy into a service one. The ebb and flow of supply and demand caused companies to lay off people during down periods with the expectation that they would be brought back when business picked up.

Firing has almost always meant "employee did something wrong."

Being laid off has almost always meant --- and still means --- "the company is not meeting financial expectations."

The only thing that changed is the notion that the laid-off employee can reasonably hope to be called back (although it does happen). And part of that, I assume, has to do with the company paying severance. Paying someone, say, 26 weeks not to work and then bringing them back to work just doesn't typically happen. Were "laid off" factory workers in the 60s and 70s paid a severance? Or did they just tighten their belt for a few weeks until the call came to come back to work?

Nobody is "getting away" with anything. Many job applications ask you for a reason why you left your previous employer, with some of the choices being "terminated" (or involuntary) or "laid off" (or voluntary). There still is a difference.