There has never, ever, in my 40 years of flying been a true shortage of Pilots. There has always been a source of Pilots to Airlines from somewhere. As for future projections, in my view they are a sales gimic to attract the unwary. If you take 3 good years of Pilot demand and growth, then project that growth forward 20 years, you get an exponential curve which is completely unrealistic (it totally disregards the history of regular downturns).
The Aircraft manufacturers themselves have different factions. You've got the salesmen that need to convince people that there'll be a massive shortage of Pilots over the coming years in order to ensure an abundance of Crew to meet their sales requirements. On the other hand you have the Aircraft development team (at Airbus) selling the fact that Aircraft will be semi-Autonomous by the mid 30's. They can't have it both ways but yet they do because the different departments have different goals.
If you've been on an MPL course, in my opinion, stick with it the best you can. There is going to be a long term glut of Pilots. If you've done the MPL then there's a chance of a queue jump.