Inscrivez-vous ou connectez-vous pour rejoindre votre communauté professionnelle.
Be honest and appreciate his work. Explain logical reason for layoff and rephrase the words like "laying off" with "letting you go" or "restructuring", "right sizing". It's about preparing the employee for this bad news as well as saving your organization's reputation and face.
As an additional step, if the employee is competent, try to help him getting a new job at personal capacity.