workforce reduction
Trimming employee numbers
Workforce reduction is a corporate euphemism for layoffs or job cuts.
Companies announce workforce reductions when eliminating positions sounds too harsh: The company announced a 15% workforce reduction.
The phrase emphasizes the abstract workforce over the actual workers being let go, lending bureaucratic distance to what amounts to firing people.
- downsizingReducing workforce or scale
- layoffsMass job eliminations
- pink slipEmployment termination notice
- walking papersInformal dismissal notice
- furloughsTemporary work absences
restructuring · unemployment · exit · last day · redundancy · dismissal · severance packages · financial hardship · cost cutting · outsourcing · mergers · retraining programs · acquisitions · retrenchment · rightsizing · silence · sigh · whisper
- workforceworkers, employee, employees, employer, worker
- cutbackscutback, cutbacks, decrease, layoff, budget cuts
- reducingshrinking, lessening, diminishing, decreasing, cutting back
- labor economicsjob market, labor supply, labor demand, employment rates, unemployment rates
- business movesmerger, acquisition, layoffs, restructuring, expansion
- cost cuttingcost cutting, budgeting, budget, budget cuts, expenses
workforce reductionhiring spree
Intensive period of employment
recruitment drive · hiring boom · staffing up · employment growth · talent acquisition
workforce reductionbusiness expansion
Organizational growth strategy
scaling up · rapid growth · buildout · ramp-up · market expansion