Comment by mkl

It's more commonly (but still not very commonly) called a "gentlemen's layoff", but confusingly seems to (also?) mean pretty much the opposite of what curtisblaine said: "Elon Musk and Jason Calacanis messaged about how return-to-office mandates could be used as a ‘gentlemen’s layoff’ to get workers to voluntarily quit" - https://archive.ph/tC9H4. No idea which sense birdymcbird intended.