I was laid off along with several other senior people in my group this week. I saw this coming from a mile away:
First with the announcement of an "exciting" new team of 150 volunteers who will save the company money by working 12 hour days to replace as many full time employees as possible and backfill the rest with contractors in India. The announcement email was worded like a startup prospectus, trying to make this sound exciting but really saying "if you're in the US and want to keep your job, volunteer for 12 hour days or we can't guarantee what will happen."
Then in December I received a BE review, despite leading the team on a successful Greenfield conversion and receiving "thank you" commendations from others on my team during the project. No details were given about why I received below expectations on my review and my manager said he wanted to at least give me a meets expectations but his boss wouldn't let him. I knew my end was near right then and there.
Thanks to others on this site for sharing your experiences and letting us all know what's going on behind the scenes.