The same combination of separate issues keeps polluting the debate. 1. There is no STEM shortage, there's a shortage of a particular subset of STEM-related ski

The same combination of separate issues keeps polluting the debate. 1. There is no STEM shortage, there's a shortage of a particular subset of STEM-related skills, most notably software development (which btw is a skill barely even taught even in CS, and certainly not filtered for, leading to people with CS degrees that can't code their way out of a paper bag). Even within just IT, software development stands out by a mile in all stats when it comes to the imbalance between jobs and candidates. 2. Wages are being artificially kept down despite the shortage. Migrant visa's are one of the things being abused to depress wages. The fact that this is happening during a shortage is remarkable and confusing, but can be explained by fear (wages will explode sooner or later, and this terrifies many employers) and by the low social standing of software developers (even within IT software developers have for the longest time been known as the code monkeys at the bottom of the hierarchy, just above the support people) which leads to even developers themselves not questioning their salaries. Salaries that tend to be pretty decent, but well below what should be the market value.