But, I look at this another way. All those empty jobs aren't due to a lack of skilled people. They' re due to poor management. While there may be too few skilled candidates around, there are plenty of good, talented candidates worth hiring who can do the work. I think the real problem is that short-sighted, unskilled managers are making too few hires when they could be making more.
New technology opens the door to weak management.
Jobs are evolving as quickly as the hot technologies that underlie them. The most desirable new hires are those who can ride a fast learning curve and adapt to new challenges. In a hurry to capitalize on that new technology, the company addresses it ineptly, and in doing so creates inadequate managers. When a company promotes and assigns marginally-skilled managers to new functions, these managers know they must beef up their staffs with real experts to hide their shortcomings. Incapable of hiring and training people who require a learning curve, they specify overly narrow job descriptions that are un-fillable in a reasonable time frame.