> Maybe there really isn't a shortage of tech talent
That depends on what level of experience you are looking at. In particular, based on my experiences, your premise is the reverse of what is happening:
> to increase the supply with younger, less expensive workers who are more easily exploited for long hours and poor conditions
In the U.S. this does not match what I see. Instead, there are a ton of positions for "senior" positions that are filtering on specific amounts of experiences in such a way that there just aren't enough people that match. Likewise, the field is VERY CROWDED with newer devs that lack experience - they fight over a relative handful of positions that have truly absurd entrance requirements.
This also results in some layers -
- The layer of places that abuse their newer developers and get away with it because that initial field is so crowded. This would seem to support your premise, except they aren't the ones pushing the "tech shortage" narrative - they are just profiting from it. Devs that can claw their way of out of this layer are well-positioned for "time", but likely lacking in the specific experiences and breadth that the other layers want.
- The layer of "top" places that want devs with enough experience and mix of skills that they have a hard time hiring for them. These places pay top dollar and work on their reps to help attract talent - they also are trying to resolve their shortages by getting new grads as interns. This layer is the primary cause of the problems, as I'll note below.
- The layer of "middle" places that are trying to use devs to help generate or streamline profits. They want people with enough experience and independence that they are drawing on the same pool as the "top" places. Because they have to compete with the marketing and budgets of the top places, they never have enough people, so they try to make up for it by getting more "senior" people, which only helps feed the scarcity for the "top" and the lack of jobs for the newer devs in the "lower" layers.
What you end up with is a weird divide - the top jobs pay great, but demand you have things like a degree (it's rapidly becoming a requirement DESPITE so many successful pros that either don't have a degree or have an unrelated degree), that you solve increasingly complex algorithm problems despite that rarely being a demand of the job, and wanting a breadth of depth of experience that few jobs will prepare you for. They face a tech shortage and feed it. Meanwhile the lower jobs have lots of supply, so they can abuse their devs, but rarely provide the necessary qualifications for people to advance to the other tiers. And in the middle you have companies doubling down on their chase after the same smaller pool of devs that the top layer has rather than taking in from the huge supply of less experienced devs and growing their own talent.
In the 3 companies I've worked for in the last 10 years (prior to that I had no input/visibility into hiring decisions), each one ramped up their entrance requirements to the point where I almost certainly wouldn't qualify despite being a successful and apparently valued employee at each of them.
> executives hoping to play the long game
This is contrary to my experiences with executives both personally and in most companies. Indeed, the "long game" seems to be invoked in words far more often than in actual consideration. YMMV.