It's not really conflicting from the perspective of employers. Basically, many companies are still acting as though it's 2009 with respect to hiring practices

It's not really conflicting from the perspective of employers. Basically, many companies are still acting as though it's 2009 with respect to hiring practices and expect experienced people willing to work for sub-par salaries. When they aren't able to find such people anymore, they either turn to foreign workers (via visa programs), contractors (to avoid overhead costs), or just reassign more work to existing employees in order to keep labor costs down and profits up. The net result is what you're seeing - seemingly ridiculous hiring criteria for stagnant (or in some cases dropping) wages in the midst of a "hot" job market that's really hot because the low-wage service and contractor labor segments have soaked up so many people.