> I don't know what's a fair price in every area of the country for all of these jobs, so beats me if $12 is good or bad, but beyond this one anecdote, people have been saying for years that there was a shortage of skilled labor in the country. So aside from whether this one guy is paying fairly or not, it does appear to be a real issue.

If I say something and I make $N per year for believing that.

Why would they stop saying it?

The truth is, the "shortage" is largely in the poor quality of hiring screens and and a desire to pay the real market rate (rather than the lowest # they can hire the bare minimum of workers to function and work them 50 hours a week).

If a shortage genuinely existed, you would see substantial wage growth.

We don't have such wage growth.

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Similarly, when labor organizations get too powerful you see the opposite effect that creates an artificial shortage:

https://members.aamc.org/eweb/upload/The%20Complexities%20of...

> The rapid expansion in medical education was halted twenty years after it started as researchers,
policymakers, and the educational community reassessed the need for further growth. This change
recognized that the doubling of medical school graduates would lead to a growing supply for at least 35
years. In 1980, the Graduate Medical Education National Advisory Committee (GMENAC) reported
(based upon the number of physicians needed to provide “necessary and appropriate” services) that a
surplus of 70,000 physicians would be likely by the year 2000.20 With the promotion of tightly
controlled managed care in the early 1990s, many groups reaffirmed the belief that the nation was facing
a surplus. The national Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME),21 the National Academy of
Science’s Institute of Medicine (IOM), the Pew Health Professions Commission,22 the AAMC,23 the
AMA24 and other national physician associations expressed concerns about an impending potential
surplus of physicians.

> The medical education and training community responded to these recommendations. The number of
graduates from U.S. medical schools remained virtually unchanged between 1980 and 2005. Despite this
stagnation in medical school enrollment, the doubling of medical school enrollment during the 1960s
and 1970s led to a steady stream of new physicians entering the workforce at a rate greater than those
leaving the field. Consequently, the ratio of physicians to population increased steadily from 1980
onward. However, few health policy experts in the year 2000 would have argued that this constituted a
surplus of physicians, even though this number grew from 202 per 100,000 in 1980 to 276 per 100,000
in 2000. 29 Bureau of Health Professions projections had estimated that physician demand - not a
defined need - would increase over time. In fact, per capita utilization of medical services did rise as
they had suggested it would.30 Other analyses had assumed major cost and utilization controls in health
care.31

https://www.aamc.org/newsroom/newsreleases/458074/2016_workf...

> Washington, D.C., April 5, 2016—Under every combination of scenarios modeled, the United States will face a shortage of physicians over the next decade, according to a physician workforce report released today by the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges). The projections show a shortage ranging between 61,700 and 94,700, with a significant shortage showing among many surgical specialties.

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