The other disconnect is that the employers are trying to fill positions at a certain price point which is usually much lower than most people will accept. Askin

The other disconnect is that the employers are trying to fill positions at a certain price point which is usually much lower than most people will accept. Asking why we can't just take those positions when desperate is basically asking why you can't work for significantly less than you have been making for the past 10 years. People have houses and families to support. In some places those jobs pay so little that you can barely make rent with roommates. They exist solely to prove there aren't any qualified US workers for H1B purposes. A lot of really good people can be had in certain US states if you're willing to pay them a lot of money relative to their local market. I've gotten several applications from some pretty overqualified people simply because the pay for the associate position is higher than their local employers are offering for mid-level people. If you then turn that around, it suggests that some of these employers struggle to fill positions because they actually have to compete on the nation-wide market for people.