I saw this happen at a Japanese company that I used to work for. I trained my replacement. The employers do not even try to find an American. They go straight for the HS-1B employees. HS stands for “half salary”.
I dealt with some auditors from one of the big firms; of the three, one was an American guy, one was a Canadian woman who had waited five years to be able to work/live here, and the third was a young Filipino guy. The worst part was that their salaries weren’t even much lower than an American worker’s; the flip side was that they worked much longer hours than companies could ever expect to squeeze out of Americans.
I feel lucky to have a job from the “before-times”, with medical/dental benefits (not great - or expensive, but I don’t have to deal with ObamaCare), vacation time that has built up over several years, and a fairly predictable workweek that doesn’t require much unpaid overtime. I couldn’t imagine looking for work today; I see what is offered out there, and understand why so many Americans leave the northeast rather than deal with pay cuts to try to survive here.
Anyone I know who lost a job in the last decade and found work again in the same field is making a lot less money; it seems as though firms simply swapped their middle-aged staffs to reduce salaries and reset the clock on accrued vacation time...