My take: at least in the places where I've been, IT tech in the last ~20 years was dominated by enthusiastic youngsters like me. CS and CS-related fields were t

My take: at least in the places where I've been, IT tech in the last ~20 years was dominated by enthusiastic youngsters like me. CS and CS-related fields were the default go-to job in my circles around the '90ies, creating a large surplus. If you wanted a job in the beginning of your career, you had to accept either a crappy job or a low-paying one. I've never seen in the eurozone the US-style crazy-high 100k+ salaries. In general, here an IT engineer hired fulltime fetches a rate which is comparable to many other regular jobs, and generally lower than other engineering positions. However the churn and stress is much, much higher in my career experience. We joke about JS, but almost everything around the IT has now super-fast refresh cycles which require never-ending honing of your skills just for the sake of it. That initial candidate surplus is now starting to age and drain. These CS candidates have now a decades-old experience in the current tech stack which is worth gold, but are also tired of the churn. You can still get them, but be prepared to pay them a lot more. Many companies which were founded on entry-level salaries will now see their workforce explode in cost. This is going to be huge with the current inflation in the next 2-5 years, where your average company raise won't cut anymore and you're forced to jump ship to maintain your purchasing power. The young talent is still there of course, but it's often more specialized than what I remember a few decades ago due to the growth of the field. This means that finding a good fit reduces your pool significantly, unless you accept your candidate will be learning for a long time.