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If the job stays open for months then either the role isn't that important, or the hiring company is doing something seriously wrong. Finding good people is not difficult ("site:linkedin.com works for x", where x is google, facebook, whatever). Attracting them is harder - either the company needs to sort itself out internally to meet candidate expectations or it has to modify its business model to pay the expected wages.

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Or... the business isn't located in a tech hub or major city and there just aren't many developers in the area. It's not a profession where people are so desperate to find work that they'll move just anywhere for the job. My father's company had a software dev position open for almost a year because it was in a relatively low population area -- the pay and benefits they offered were well above market for the region.

Working in a low population area is risky because there is also a lower pool of available places to work if that position doesn't work out. It's impossible to attract people from outside the region unless you are paying above market rates for higher population areas, which few employers are willing to do. So, they're stuck trying to find someone in the local talent pool.

Echoing steverb, the problem is not a lack of talent per se (although there may also be that) but that your father's company decided to do software in an area that's not suited for is and is unwilling to do what's necessary to attract talent anyway. "pay and benefits ... well above market for the region" doesn't mean jack to the outsider you're implicitly trying to recruit. Might mean something if you make the case for equilivent standard of living, but as steverb pointed out something generally needs to also be done to accommodate the possibility the job doesn't work out.

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