I 100% agree. I find it troubling that people are 'hiring for React'. How does a developer possibly learn React without learning the core concepts of HTML, CSS, Javascript and thus adapt to any library? It doesn't make sense to me at all.
That would seem so right? I thought so exactly too. This works when your engineering team is small. But once you go beyond the first level of engineering and its mostly maintenance and updates, the people who apply for the job are not interested in learning new things. They have learnt one thing and want to apply that skill 9-5 and go home. For those roles hiring for react is easier.