Quiet Firing
what it means
The employer-side counterpart to quiet quitting. Withheld opportunities, no feedback, no progression — pressure applied by omission rather than action.
Making someone's job unpleasant enough that they resign, rather than dismissing them.
the origin story
Named in 2022 as a direct response to quiet quitting discourse, framing the same dynamic from the other side.
Its emergence reframed the conversation usefully — quiet quitting was widely discussed as an employee problem, and quiet firing pointed out that disengagement often has a cause. Employment lawyers note it can shade into constructive dismissal, which is a legal matter rather than a slang one.
in the wild
He hasn't had a one-to-one in eight months.
Quiet firing.
They keep giving her the worst projects.
Until she leaves on her own. Cheaper than redundancy.
how to use it
- Describing management pressure by neglect
- Workplace culture conversations
- Discussing the causes of disengagement
- As a legal claim — constructive dismissal is the term that matters
- About ordinary management decisions you disagree with
- Without evidence of a pattern
related terms
receipts
Community feedback
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