lay sb off
— phrasal verb with lay uk/leɪ/us/leɪ/verb laid
B2 to stop employing someone, usually because there is no work for them to do:
Because of falling orders, the company has been forced to lay off several hundred workers.
More examples
- He was laid off last week.
- We have had to lay off all our workers.
- She became depressed after being laid off from the factory.
- We are doing all we can to avoid laying off staff.
- The company laid off all its printers last year.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Firing staff
- axe
- be out on your ear idiom
- chop
- constructive dismissal
- defrock
- delayering
- furlough
- get the push idiom
- give sb the heave-ho idiom
- grass
- heave-ho
- invalid sb out
- pension
- relieve
- removal
- remove
- retire
- sack
- sacking
- shakeout
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