The delicate line between "Facebook friend" and "work friend" is fraught with potential complications ... like what to do if you're tasked with canning your "friends."

In this economy, layoffs happen. (Only about 71,000 were announced yesterday.) And if you have to fire your subordinates at work, should you un-friend them first?

I ran the question by a bevy of my tech pals at CES (so you know they've been there). Their answer: For the most part, no. Here, their best suggestions for handling this pink-slip gray area.

Suggest New Friends
If it's a company-mandated layoff, not a firing due to incompetence, consider using Facebook as a tool to assist the soon-to-be-unemployed with networking. You thought highly enough of the people to hire them (and make them Facebook friends) in the first place, so you might as well open up your contact list to help them out.

Click here for two more rules to live (and un-friend) by.


Make Yourself Private
If you do have to fire them, you may want to consider first downgrading their Facebook status to only see your limited profile. That's a good rule of thumb for co-workers in the first place, especially if you're prone to posting about your way-too-happy hours off the clock. This can be less shocking than booting them from your friends list entirely -- that move can raise suspicion and create chaos at a time when you're likely trying to manage panic.

Give 'Em Two Weeks
If you just can't bear to keep them on your friends list, at least wait a respectable period after they've left the company and your social circle to axe them. But always think twice before inflicting this minor insult. You never know who will become a valuable contact in the future.

Amy Stojsavljevic is a frequent Lemondrop contributor with a background in technology PR.