In our group's last round of layoffs, neither our manager nor his manager had any say in deciding who was cut. (Or so he said at an informal gathering at Quaker Steak.) The level at which these decisions were made had no idea who contributed what to the overall team, and appeared to pick names at random. We lost a few of the best engineers in our group, and none of the bottom performers were affected. So whether you do your best, or just enough to not stick out, or spend the workday surfing Facebook/LinkedIn, it appears your career is just part of the next round of the company's Russian Roulette tournament.
You are absolutely right, @On0g2Ft-2qlr. I see all the posts saying to do your best to make sure you are safe, and usually it would be sound advice, but not here. People who make these decisions have no idea how hard you have worked. They have numbers (pay) on paper, and they make their decisions based on that. Makes no sense, but hey, that's General Electric for you.