My experience is somewhat different.
I have been told by my references that they were called, I have also been told by other people that their references were contacted. I have only been contacted as a reference maybe once, but I know others who had calls several times. This was long ago, however. Maybe this has changed in the last few years, and the references are going away.
Why does every employer ask for a list of references, then not call them?
I have never included the list of references, only the standard line "reference available upon request" at the end of the resume. Odds are the interviewer will never ask for them. If they do, they probably intend to contact them.
Over the past couple of decades, I've sent out a few hundred resumes (maybe, I don't know, 300 or 400--my spreadsheet for 2013-2015 lists 145 applications). Out of those I've gotten at most two dozen interviews and a dozen job offers.
Throughout that time I've maintained a list of references on my resume. The rest of the resume is, to my mind, not very informative. The list of job titles and degrees says little about how competent I was.
Now and then, I check with one of my references to see if anyone called them. I checked again yesterday with the second reference on my list. The answer was the same: Nope. No one has ever, as far as I can recall, called any of my references. Not the people who interviewed me; not the people who offered me jobs.
When the US government did a background check on me, they asked me for a list of references to contact. My uncertain recollection is that they ignored it and interviewed my neighbors and other contacts instead, as if what I had given them was a list of people not to bother contacting because they'd only say good things about me.
Is this rational or irrational? Why does every employer ask for a list of references, then not call them?