I think &quot;made redundant&quot; has been the <i>British</i> term for laid off for quite a while; though this is, IME, far less common in American usage. I think the distinction you are positing between them could be a good one to make, but I don&#x27;t think its one that has ever been consistently applied in general usage of the terms in reference to business.<p>&gt; In this case, the company is laying off a lot of its sales force and recruiting team while mumbling further content-free buzzwords about refocusing its strategy. Meaning, they aren&#x27;t growing any more, so they won&#x27;t be selling as much or recruiting as much.<p>Given that affected parts of the company are those most directly implicated in the regulatory violations that have produced the immediate problems, I wonder if there isn&#x27;t another level of spin here, and whether this isn&#x27;t more a set of firings to purge the problem units than a layoff.