Never heard of that one in the UK - even heard of people who weren't even told they were fired, they just didn't get paid and were expected to take the hint.

Imagine my horror one month when the university I worked for "forgot" to pay me one month - due to an administrative error apparently....

This is true if you are in a tenure track job, and denied tenure.

That's not true for postdocs, in general. If the sponsor pulled funding from the project that funded my postdoc, it would be challenging to keep him.