joehlindsay Feb 7, 2011:

Interesting observations.

rkillings Feb 7, 2011:

The word used to have that blue-collar connotation in the US, too, but it's now long gone.
With the headline-grabbing redundancies in the UK now occurring at the NHS and in the City of London, the euphemism seesm to be going out of style:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/labour-hits-at-pounds-300m...
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/business/City--layoffs-...

Tony M Feb 7, 2011:

Yes, but... ...the term 'lay-off' is indeed used in the UK, but has traditionally had a slightly different meaning; during my lifetime, I've seen the word 'redundancy' (euphemism?) brought in to replace it in certain contexts; at first, and still to some extent, 'lay-off' had a connotation of blue-collar workers, the sort of people who might be paid weekly, and who might be laid off and taken on again as and when more work came in.

Redundancy, on the other hand, seems (to me, at least, empirically) to have been coined especially to apply to monthy salaried white-collar workers, and does imply a definitive departure; presumably 'redundant' places the emphasis on the fact that the position occupied has become superfluous, rather than on the idea of getting rid of the person.

Later, we got to down-sizing...

It's for this reason that I think the term lay-off is probably better avoided for a UK readership, unless one wishes to express it from a labour market / trades union POV, for example.

rkillings Feb 7, 2011:

No 'layoffs' in the UK? It may well be that redundancies, when they occur in *Britain*, are not called layoffs (or 'lay-offs'), but by now readers of the British press must be used to seeing that word when they occur elsewhere. (Sample: '"We have no layoff plans at Air France, and we have no layoff plans at KLM," Mr Spinetta told a news conference." www.guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 September 2003. Similar results at telegraph.co.uk, dailymail.co.uk, independent.co.uk -- but not thetimes.co.uk. :-))
I wasn't going to mention the more international ft.com site, but I couldn't resist this one by Lucy Kellaway, December 12 2010:
"Because it’s almost Christmas, I’ve decided to focus on two things that are always popular at this time of year. Layoffs and stand-up rows."