If the employer only wants one year of experience or less noobs and excludes anyone experienced as out of date or too expensive, then the recent PHD grad is by definition excluded unless the PHD took less than a year.

But I have seen many recruiters/companies treat a 5-6 year PhD as the equivalent of 1-2 years of industry experience.

You are correct. I know many PhDs who finished their degree around 28-35. Several of them are in a conundrum because they don't have management experience nor do they have professional software development experience. When companies interview these people as senior developers (the level corresponding to the 6 figure salary some PhDs expect), they find the person with a PhD lacking. It is quite a mess really ... I tell people to not do a PhD in CS unless they are independently wealthy or don't want a normal (kids, house, yard) life. Sad but that's life.