Merry Christmasand You’re Fired

How do you fire somebody around the holidays?

It’s a question that lots of employers have raised lately. They increasingly are disregarding traditional taboos against holiday season layoffs, handing out pink slips instead of Christmas bonuses.

To handle the firings humanely--and perhaps to assuage their guilt--many employers turn for help to specialists known euphemistically as outplacement consultants. At the five Los Angeles-area offices of the outplacement firm Right Associates, business has boomed since mid-November, said managing principal Gary Saenger.

Outplacement specialists say employers should let laid-off workers know that they realize how difficult it is to get such bad news around the holidays. They advise that employers might even provide a little extra severance pay to soften the blow.

At the same time, consultants say that employers should point out the advantages of getting word of a layoff as soon as possible.

Still, there are limits on how far to push holiday season layoffs. “If you do it the week of Christmas . . . I think you are a Scrooge,” Saenger said. “If you’re going to do it then, why didn’t you do it the week before?”