I get that the US government funded part of the research this article is based on, but I think substantial skepticism is warranted -- as with all 'IT shortage'

I get that the US government funded part of the research this article is based on, but I think substantial skepticism is warranted -- as with all 'IT shortage' articles. Many US agencies are mis/guided/influenced/funded/run directly and/or indirectly by industry professionals, lobbyists, etc. If there was any actual shortage of IT personnel in the US, it would not take experienced US-based IT professionals months or years of job searching to find work -- if at all. There is no conspiracy theory necessary -- in this case, it's pretty clear-cut -- a training company needed some PR to drum up business, so they got their lobbyist to work with a group inside an agency in the government, got a report, pinged their contact at CBS, done. But outside of that, it'd be nice to know how 500,000 alleged openings compares historically. It's obviously a number that is supposed to impress. But how impressed should we be? How fast is the number growing? If the number is going up, why aren't all these unemployed IT professionals getting hired? Companies are willing to sustain IT attacks instead of hire and train an experienced IT professional? Hiring remotely is easier than ever, but does that apply to security jobs? Are clearances necessary? Physical presence? What is the appropriate number of job openings, per IT vertical (e.g. cybersecurity, networking, cloud, big data, SCADA, etc.), at any point in time, to provide proper 'slack'/fluidity of the labor force? Presumably this would be some number that the IT industry was roughly comfortable with, that industry analysts/economists thought was 'healthy', etc. Is that 10,000 job openings? 100,000? 1,000,000?