Idioms - hiring and firing

Exercise on idioms about hiring staff

There are different ways to talk about hiring and firing (giving people work and taking it away from them). Some of these expressions are informal. For example, we say to take someone on (give someone a position of work) whereas to hire or to recruit a person sounds more formal. Avoid the expression to contract somebody, which sounds Spanglish. There are very colloquial expressions to describe when a boss doesn't want us any more. For example, to fire or sack a person or give someone the sack are used when an employer gets rid of an employee for having done something very wrong at work. But in a more formal and polite way we often just say to ask someone to leave or to dismiss or give someone their notice. As this is not usually done immediately, we give somebody a month's notice, for example. If the worker decides to leave of his or her own accord (voluntarily), he'll / she'll resign or hand in his/her notice. Oh, of course, the Americans will say, "I quit!"

Fill the gaps with ONE WORD ONLY from the idioms in the text above. You may have to change the word grammatically eg. hire to hiring, etc.

1) John's been given the because he had problems with his boss at work.

2) There's more work than we can cope with in the factory. We must on more staff.

3) I caught her with her hand in the petty cash tin. I'll have to her.

4) We've a new sales manageress. We're very happy with her.

5) The atmosphere at work recently is terrible. I think I'm going to in my notice.

6) The Finance minister has over a fraud scandal.

7) There's a big campaign going on at the moment. The company is expanding rapidly.

8) Jeff's behaviour in the office has been most inappropriate. I've had to ask him to .

9) I'm afraid to say, you haven't passed the trial period. I'll be giving you a week's as from today.

10) I'm fed up with this dead end job! I !

*Incorrect answers are shown in red. You have TWO chances to find the correct answers.

Solutions and explanations...