The only shortage there has ever been is experienced captains,there are a good thousand + cpl holders just in the UK with no jobs.
If there was a shortage they would all have jobs, ive lost track of how many friends i know with 50k + debt from 2001-2003 with no jobs.
I tell every one who comes to the flight club i instruct at to do there home work, its a simple one.
Ask the CAA how many CPL passes since 2000, then work out how many jobs the think have been created.
Then the proof ontop, if all these CPLs had jobs then realistically as soon as they could they would upgrade to the ATPL, so the next question you ask the CAA is how many ATPL upgrades in the same time frame.
You will find a split quite a big split