Sometimes a person loses their work due to being fired. Another scenario is that when a person is laid off from the company. Both lead to the unemployment of the person. So here are a few differences between layoff and being fired. These differences will help one to understand the difference between them.
Layoff vs Being Fired
The main difference between layoff and being fired is that in case of a layoff, the termination is done due to any problem from the company’s side. On the other hand, an employee is being fired if the fault is from the employee’s side. There are some facilities for the employee in case of a layoff, but there are no facilities for the employee who is fired from his duty.
A layoff is an incident when the company has to terminate the contract of an employee due to a problem from the company’s side. In this case, the company may face some financial issues or some legal issues. The company is always forced to lay off employees. Otherwise, this is not a good option even for the company.
Being fired is an incident when the employer is terminated due to any fault or reason from the employee’s side. This proves to be a very bad mark on the career of the person. This is very disrespectful as well as they will have a very tough situation to find another job. This is mostly done at the last stage of issues.
Comparison Table Between a Layoff and Being Fired
| Parameters of comparison | Layoff | Being Fired |
| Definition | The incident when the company has to terminate the contract of an employee due to a problem from the company’s side. | The incident is when the employer is terminated due to any fault or reason from the employee’s side. |
| Fault | The backlog is from the companies side | The backlog is from the employee side |
| Cause | The maybe any relocation for the company or over staff problems etc | The cause may be due to dishonesty, or negative remarks on performance etc. |
| Pay | The employee gets the severance pay from the company | The employee does not get any severance pay. |
| Unemployment Benefits | In this case, the employee is applicable for unemployment benefits from the company. | In this case, the person is not eligible for unemployment benefits from the company. |
What is a Layoff?
The layoff is a condition when a company is bound to cancel the contract of its employees. This happens due to many reasons for the company sides. There are many hard times for a company during which they have to deteriorate the number of employees. The layoff case is not due to any employee. It’s completely considered as a company’s fault.
This may happen due to the company being running is a loss for a long time, or maybe due to relocation of the company, or may also happen due to over recruitment of staffs. All these factors are personally company’s issues, but they are forced to cancel the contracts of their staffs. In this condition company always provides some benefits to the laid-off employees.
The benefit depends on the company, but some benefits are very common, like severance pay. Normally every company provides these to the employees. The employees may also ask for unemployment benefits from the company as they have a family to feed. This scenario is also very harmful to the reputation of the company. The people will lose faith in the company, and the number of people applying to work with the company will reduce. This situation happens in the very rare case when the company is not able to bear the number of staff they are having.
What is Being Fired?
Being fired is a condition when an employee of a company is terminated due to some cause. The cause is mostly from the employee’s side. This may be any complaint against the person, or It may be any other reason. An employee is mostly fired by the head of the company against proper documents.
This is not done on a notice basis. If the employee receives the letter, then he is off from his duty from the very next day. So an employee is always wanted to be respectful, trustful, and trustworthy. So if they violate the norms at a very high level, a company is forced to fire their employee.
In case of a being fired, the employee does not get any severance pay from the company. Severance pay is an amount that is given to the employee as compensation to the employee. The compensation is on an enthusiastic basis that a person lost his job. He also has a family to feed, so compensation is given. But if a person is fired, then there is no place of enthusiasm as the faults are done mostly in the conscious mind. If not done consciously, then the person would not have been fired. So there is no facility for severance pay in this case.
Main Differences Between a Layoff and Being Fired
- The incident when the company has to terminate the contract of an employee due to a problem from the company’s side is called a layoff, but in contrast to that, the incident when the employer is terminated due to any fault or reason from the employer side is called being fired.
- In the case of a layoff, the backlog is from the company’s side, but in comparison to that, in the case of being fired, the backlog is from the employee side.
- The layoff may be due to any relocation for the company or over staff problems etc. on the other hand, the cause of being fired may be due to dishonesty, or negative remarks on performance, etc.
- The employee gets the severance pay from the company if they are laid off, but in contrast to that, the employee does not get any severance pay if they are being fired.
- In this case of a layoff, the employee is applicable for unemployment benefits from the company, but in contrast to that, in this case of being fired, the person is not eligible for unemployment benefits from the company.
Conclusion
During tough situations like natural disasters, financial issues, many companies get shut down. This led to a layoff for many employees working in that company. This situation is equally tough for a company as well as for the employee. Both are extreme decisions from the company.
The difference between layoff and being fired is clearly described in the article. One hampers the company’s reputation, and the other harms the person’s reputation. Every person who is terminated from a company may not be fired and have some problems.
References
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/job.4030150705
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1747954116636706