The whole story about pilot shortage is not about absolute numbers. It's only about the amount of guys they'd like with the desired experience to get better safety and thus lower insurance rates.
But as it is with everything else on this beautiful world, it's all about the money, money, money.
If you can't get the desired numbers with the money you're ready to fork up, the beancounters will restart their Windows95 programs and tell the greedy managers, that by paying a little more on insurance, you can get a lot more of the cheaper monkeys that are banging on the doors and end up with less expenses than if you'd have to pay the experienced guys the money they'd need to come.
The only downside of the story is a slightly bigger hole in one of the Swiss cheese slices, but that does not bother anyone in the industry too much.
The lip service about 'striving for the utmost safety' is reiterated ad nauseam and the even more nauseating statements after the next tragedy are diligently rehearsed.
There is no shortage!