The author assumed that the recruiter accidentally thought that he had been fired after reading the list of fired employees, as there were other employees with the same name.
In reality, he had been fired as his contract had not been renewed. He wasn't actively fired, but rather his contract expired because someone failed to renew it.
A big part of the problem here seems to be rather that there were no warnings of his impending "departure" to the correct people. There were no emails to his manager reminding them that his contract was ending, or to the author himself. Even if it was intended for his contract to end, it would still be a good idea to have that email sent out, just to remind them. I can totally foresee somebody forgetting that their contract is finished.