Inspector:
The airlines have spent the last 20+ years breaking the pilot unions and demoralizing the pilots, cutting anything good out of the career to save money or demoralize. They have also cut any training or safety expenses they could get away with. The result is a demoralized workforce, doing a job that requires extreme dedication and motivation. I've been involved in military and airline aviation for nearly 50 years, I spend a lot of time with pilots professionally and casually, and I've never been as concerned about their capabilities in the cockpit. I'm not alone, I'm hearing this from the older pilots almost constantly now.
Relations between pilots and airline management have always been harsh, with airline CEOs stating they will give only what they are forced to give by the unions. In 1981 Congress added Section 159a to the Railway Labor Act, effectively ending the ability of airline unions to influence the airlines or the airline industry. With the unions broken, and the FAA never really policing the industry, the airlines steadily drove down compensation, benefits, conditions, rest periods, days off, and safety. Morale followed.
With the long union contracts, it has taken decades. The airlines are where they said they would be: they will pay only what they are forced to pay, and now that happens only when there are no young people willing to enter the eight+ year pipeline to the pilot profession at below minimum wage. It has been over ten years since the profession was worth the cost and sacrifices. Young people stopped coming years ago, and the "new" (~ten years new) pilots are not nearly the caliber of the ones hired before them. Some are outstanding, but as a group, they are not the best and brightest that used to claw their way to airline cockpits. The old pilots have also lost some capabilities, from the days when they flew hard and trained hard.
Airline safety has peaked, it will never be the same reliable industry pilots and other airline workers made it. The major airlines will make heaps of money, as a pilot shortage means a shortage of low-cost airlines that keep ticket prices down. There are limits to capitalism, and this industry has reached and passed one. Taking away the right to strike gave this industry too much power, which they have used with reckless abandon.
While other industries reliant on specialized workers carefully manage the supply with recruiting and training, this industry has willfully destroyed the supply, to cripple their low-cost competition. The lack of pilots has begun to impact our nation's economy, and soon we will be looking at compromising safety further to "save" the airline industry. It will be the pilots we will turn to, asking them to give more, while blaming them for every incident they couldn't prevent.