verb: An
action taking by a
company to
reduce the
size of its
workforce in short order. Employees who are
laid off can be given
no notice, be
terminated without cause, and
ceremoniously booted out the door. While
nominally lay offs occur in a completely
apolitical environment,
all too frequently employees are selected to be
laid off according to the
agendas of
managers and
directors.
When a publicly traded company is going to lay off more than 10 percent of its workforce, it must notifed its shareholders (or The Street) of this action as soon as it has been decided, even if the lay offs will not happen for some period of time.