I definitely observed this phenomenon while I was out of work for a little while, and even directly asked the recruiter when looking at two roles on their career portal: "Why does the lower wage, lower responsibility, and lower risk job come with higher barriers for employment eligibility than its managerial counterpart?"

She asked what I meant so I spelled it out more directly "Why does a file clerk role require a background check, credit check and drug screen but this role here, a Senior accounting role asks only for relevant job history?" She admitted she didn't know.

I wish I could say this was limited to that company, but I saw it so much over the course of about 3 months that I started to really wonder what the hell is going on..