The Middle East doesn't have nearly the pool of pilots to start with compared to North America, and even NA is suffering from an extreme shortage of pilots. (Wonder why the airlines no longer fly to your small town? Probably because of a shortage of pilots)
There is a low-paid and debt-heavy portion of the career. However, Medical students aren't paid and even the lowest-paid pilot is making more than the average phd candidate.
Also it's probably easier to get student loans for medicine than it is for piloting.
Maybe the regional carriers should pay more and have better conditions but funny how they describe it as a "pilot shortage". It's just supply and demand.
You can, of course, easily solve the problem by raising wages for regional jet pilots, but it takes a few years for the excess pilots to propagate to the major carriers.