No, the talent simply isn’t there in the numbers companies would need them. And this isn’t limited to the US only - even here in the UK, it’s a struggle to hire good talent, because the fields are incredibly muddled, especially since AI-aided engineering came to be.

For example, I work in software engineering. My role, aside from being a senior engineer, a systems architect and designer, also involves hiring. We’re actually hiring in a number of countries, US included, and I’m overseeing most of it. The applicant rates are simply abysmal. HR pre-filters our candidates, and that usually boils things down from around 1000 CVs to about 50 who actually make it to first roster, and from that 50, we end up actually interviewing maybe 5, because the rest obviously lack the required (and clearly indicated!) skills. And even from those 5, more often than not we choose none to hire because they don’t really reach the bare minimum for the position (and to be perfectly fair, the bar isn’t set too high). I’ve recently had a candidate who had a Masters in Computer Science and some 8 years of work experience, yet couldn’t name base components in the specific segment he’s been working in, nor could he define basic terms like SOLID or KISS.

And I’m hearing similar experiences from other fields too. Reality is, there’s not a lack of people but a lack of talent, which often needs to be imported. And blocking that import will simply result in the companies moving to locations where they can source the talent or where the talent is willing to move to. Previously that was the US, because even though the situation was quite shite, your country has done a great job hiding that via media propaganda. Now it isn’t, simply because y’all had to elect a racist demented dipshit.