It's very difficult to imagine an American company doing this, especially in the face of declining revenue. American corporations have a ways to go when it comes to treating employees like human beings rather than resources.
On the other-hand, morale must be terrible at places like Nokia and Blackberry right now. Programs like this help the company as it creates loyalty and helps keep good employees in place as they know that there will be assistance if they do get laid off. But once again, it could create or hasten a death-spiral. Employees can see that these layoff programs are expensive so they may bail out to get theirs before the money runs out. Tough times. Touch choices.
This is a completely predictable expense - a company shouldn't be put out of business by paying redundancy money any more than they should go out of business when the electricity bill comes in or the printer needs a new toner cartridge.
EDIT: I should had put more emphasis on "rarity" - lets say almost unimaginable. At least, I have an impression that it is much more common in USA.
Also, I think you don't need that much money in Europe, thanks to things like socialized healthcare.
Location is everything, I suppose.
The new Valley isn't that way, and that's actually a bit dangerous. I know someone who was let go from a startup, not given investor contact (or even a severance package) and he pretty much destroyed the place.
I had several family members work at Intel in the early 80's. I remember the stories about how Intel was known to really take care of their employees, even after they left the company.