[derefr]

I always thought "fired" was the ambiguous word, because a firing can be with or without cause. A layoff is always without cause. In common usage, though, to contrast with "layoff", saying "I was fired" usually means "with cause."

Because of that, this headline actually feels like incorrect usage: a company wouldn't "fire" 41% of its staff unless they were all engaged in some secret after-hours lab-equipment smuggling ring (and probably not even then.)

[pascalxus]

The egregious misuse of the word "laid off" and "fired", continues to prevail. I suspect, their doing it on purpose, to get more click throughs.