In today's business environment, employee downsizing is a widespread strategy aimed at improving firm performance and competitiveness. The literature, however, highlights unequivocal findings that many downsizing initiatives fail to retain critical skills, capabilities, experience and knowledge. Employee downsizing may therefore lead to deteriorating quality, productivity and effectiveness. This article builds on this dilemma and develops a comprehensive framework to explore the relationships between employee downsizing and knowledge retention. By holding specific organizational levels responsible for knowledge retention, we derive propositions that contribute to a better understanding of how firms can retain and avoid critical knowledge losses during employee downsizing.