About 20 years ago, I left the RAF and got a job instructing baby airline pilots in the US. I was contemplating future career options, and discussed the airlines with a 747 Training Captain. He told me not to bother, as the airlines no longer cared about having good pilots. "They only want 'good enough', and that won't last long either". He reckoned the beancounters had figured that as long as the accident rate stayed below 1 per 10 million flight hours (which is about what it is now for commuter airlines), the increasing safety of the aircraft meant that money could be saved by hiring dumber pilots (and not training them, etc). The public/media seem to accept a an accident rate of 1 in 10 million, i.e. this rate does not cause people not to fly in significant numbers.
So events like AF447 and Asiana 214 will continue to happen.
There is no shortage of good pilots. There are thousands of guys like me could join the airlines with a six-month refresher, except I won't be leaving my current profession to be paid peanuts, get over-worked, given no stick time or get treated with no respect by the company.
The good guys are not as good as they could be if they had proper training and currency on manual flying, and there are an ever increasing number of bozos I wouldn't trust with a paper aeroplane.