That has never happened in my experience, and I've been through a lot of layoffs. It's usually the exact opposite. They lay off all the peons and keep the few high level experts. They're a lot harder to replace.
1) Bad contractors, 2) Bad employees, 3) Good contractors, 4) Good employees with Mgt going along the way from bottom to top. Pay doesn't usually seem to be the deciding influence except within the groups.
One of the places I've seen do it the best first moved the few good people off of the worst teams and then just got rid of entire teams at a time.