Quiet Firing
Etymology
Coined in 2022 as the deliberate counterpart to "quiet quitting," which had just gone viral. The construction borrows the same "quiet + workplace verb" template to flip the blame back onto management. It names an old practice — constructive dismissal by attrition — with a new, symmetrical label.
noun phrase · /KWY-uht FY-ring/
Managing someone so as to make them want to leave — withholding raises, growth, and good work — rather than openly dismissing them.
What it names
The manager-side mirror of disengagement: a way to name neglect used as a tool, when a company nudges you out the door without ever taking responsibility for pushing.
Example
No project, no feedback, no path to promotion for a year — she realized she wasn’t being developed, she was being quiet fired.
Related idea
Employment law’s constructive dismissal is the formal cousin: making conditions so intolerable that resignation counts, legally, as a firing.