Ignoring that, as someone involved in a group with 4 open positions that have been open for the better part of a year, the shortage is there. It's not so much t

Ignoring that, as someone involved in a group with 4 open positions that have been open for the better part of a year, the shortage is there. It's not so much that there is a shortage of people capable of applying who "kind of" meet the requirements, but truly capable engineers in this field who could pick up the work required are definitely in short supply, PhDs or no. If the need for these positions to be filled is sufficiently low that your group can be that picky for almost a year, it would seem demand is pretty low, thus poor evidence for a shortage.