quiet firing
/ˈkwaɪət ˈfaɪərɪŋ/
CommonWhen a company makes a job miserable enough that the employee quits on their own, avoiding a formal layoff.
The term flips the moral judgment back onto employers. It's the workplace version of being ghosted while still technically together.
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | haven't been invited to a single meeting in 3 months. this is quiet firing. | Being excluded from the team is recognized as a deliberate push-out tactic. | x, 2023 |
| 02 | they didn't fire me. they gave me nothing to do until i got the message and left. | The person was pushed out by being made irrelevant rather than formally terminated. | reddit, 2023 |
| 03 | no raise, no projects, no feedback. quiet firing is a real thing and it happened to me | Multiple signals added up to a pattern of being pushed out. | tiktok, 2022 |
| 04 | companies invented quiet firing so they don't have to pay severance. it's cowardly. | Framing quiet firing as a calculated cost-avoidance strategy. | linkedin, 2022 |
Use it when
- A manager is making someone's job unbearable to push them out without severance.
- Someone gets passed over for promotions, excluded from projects, and given busy work.
- A company freezes someone's salary or demotes their responsibilities until they quit.
Do not use it when
- Someone is directly terminated or laid off.Use “layoff” instead.
- Someone is put on a formal performance plan.Use “pip” instead.
Quiet firing vs quiet quitting
quiet firing
Quiet firing is when the employer withdraws from the employee, making the job unbearable.
VS
quiet-quitting
Quiet quitting is when the employee withdraws from the employer, doing only the bare minimum.
Origin and context
Coined during the great workplace discourse of 2022, as a counterpart to quiet quitting. The term gained traction on LinkedIn and spread to broader social media.
- First seen
- 2022
- Confidence
- medium
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/quiet-firingUpdated: 2026-08-28License: CC BY 4.0