The higher price makes the economics around that job different. It makes it valuable to utilize the existing individuals' time better, it makes employers give t

The higher price makes the economics around that job different. It makes it valuable to utilize the existing individuals' time better, it makes employers give them secondary resources to help them perform their job better/faster, and it will punish employers that don't use their highly-paid time properly and to full efficiency. Also, the requirements for said position would be under pressure to be reduced to increase the available labor pool that can perform that job. Not to mention that it'll act as a price-signal for more people to train in that field. It's not a binary "oh no not enough people" type of deal. It's a sliding scale and the closer you get to each side, the higher the incentives are to revert to some sort of equilibrium. It really is quite one-sided (and potentially suspicious) to just try figure out "how can we get more of these people from other countries" instead of looking at all the other locally-available solutions. The same "circle" you speak of will happen regardless, even with plenty of immigration, with the double-whammy being that it'll affect the poorer countries that can't afford to keep those skilled immigrants.