What you have mentioned is hypothetically true, but not usually relevant. Folks bring up "there is a labor shortage" for vast swaths of lower skill jobs, famous

What you have mentioned is hypothetically true, but not usually relevant. Folks bring up "there is a labor shortage" for vast swaths of lower skill jobs, famously so: e.g. waitstaff, dishwashers, drywallers. These are jobs that huuuuuge portions of your population can do, if you give them the minimal training the job requires. So it is with many of the entry-level factory jobs discussed in the parent article. Folks in hiring positions for entry level factory jobs, or waitstaff, or dishwashers, those folks say things like "there's a labor shortage" when what they typically should be saying is "wages for the positions I am hiring for need to increase to match market rates."