Fired vs laid off

There seems to be some disagreement on the meaning of "fired" and "laid off".

I thought that people are fired when the employer doesn't think they're doing a good job, but people are laid off when there's not enough money to pay them. I thought it was just another meaning for redundant. But someone told me that when people are laid off, it means that they might be hired back. So when there's no chance of being hired back, then they're fired.

Anyway, there have been reductions in staff everywhere, and that often happens in radio, in good and bad economic times, because it seems that media companies are always getting rid of people. Today I saw three people kicked out due to financial reasons, which is really sad, because the two I knew (I didn't really know the third) were really good at what they did.

So since they don't have a chance of being hired back, they've been fired, even though it was because of finances. Or maybe it wasn't, because one person was replaced with someone who was cheaper. So that position was necessary after all.