If anything it's a great time to shed well-paid fat. Hire a noob out of MIT for 1/2 price and hope that the Sr. gave the project enough legs and enough documentation to allow the NUG to figure it out.
I mean that's certainly part of it. If (and it's a big if) you can run a project for less money, you probably should.
However I'm not sure it's as large-scale a thought process as "let's keep industry wages as low as we can" and more "I will look good if I can trim my budget, so I'm going to try to do that." The effect is the same, generally, but not quite as nefarious.
aka keep wages down