redundancies

British and Australian English
This page is about the doublespeak term redundancies

Meaning

job losses

For example

  • Their "austerity plan" led to many redundancies in the health and education departments.

  • The redundancies left thousands of families without enough money to live on.

Note:
Most often refers to job losses that occur when a government department is told to spend less money or a company decides to increase profits by replacing people with machines and technology or by replacing local workers with cheaper workers in a foreign country.

Variety

This is typically used in British and Australian English but may be used in other varieties of English too.

Quick Quiz

My company's planning reduncancies, so I'm worried about

a. having to work

b. losing my job

c. getting a raise
a) having to work b) losing my job c) getting a raise

Contributor: Matt Errey