Euphemization of the topic of “staff reduction” in German journalistic texts

In this paper, direct nominations and euphemized words and expressions on the topic of staff reduction in the articles of the German electronic publications "manager-magazin", "Stern", "Focus" for 2024-25 were analyzed. The relevance of the work is due to the fact that problems in the field of labor relations contribute to the emergence of new euphemisms and expressions. By the method of continuous sampling, direct nominations and euphemized ones on the topic of staff reduction were distinguished. The authors consider the dictionary euphemisms of the lexemes "Entlassung", "Kündigung", "entlassen", "kündigen", denoting the dismissal of personnel, in newspaper texts. The article compares the nomination of this negative phenomenon in German articles on layoffs in the United States and China, and in German articles on layoffs in Germany. A comparative analysis of the texts showed that the topic of layoffs is more actively euphemized in articles about economic problems at German enterprises and is practically not veiled at all in articles about the United States and China. Euphemized words and expressions that are not recorded in the dictionary were identified. It is established that the authors of the articles resort to such methods of euphemization as word composition, periphrase, and the use of broad-valued words. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that there is still no linguistic description and systematization of euphemisms on the topic of "dismissal with a reduction in the number of employees" in the German language.