Whatever you want to call it...mechanics in the US are the equivilent of "engineers" elsewhere. In the US an engineer requires a degree...in engineering, and most hold at least a masters or higher...and engineers don't perform work on airplanes. Semantics, and irrelevant.
There's no shortage of mechanics from what I see. We're in the process of letting some 500 go, along with a number of pilots and flight engineers, too.