Of course they are running short. This is practically slave labor.
TSMC will demand unbelievable things of a Ph.D. I cannot understand why there are any employees at all, but for love of the subject.
Read this. Read the whole thing. This is unbelievable. Maybe it is an artifact of China; I don't know.
"We all take two years to develop one generation, how come you guys can do it in one or one-and-a-half year?" And they asked if some of your customer transfer technology to you or what not? And I told him, "No," I told him that, "That's not true." I think he probably implied we steal technology from customer, the way he talk.
And I say, "I'll tell you why." I said that, "When we develop one node, basically you have some learning cycles. First, you do some simulation. And you have some idea, then you run wafers to prove that. So, you run a group of wafers according to simulation and you have some splits. The wafer runs through the fab, they come out and you measure them, you analyze them, and you try to improve and you run this again. This again, you run. So, this is learning cycle." At that time, "It takes about six learning cycle, roughly, to complete one generation." Of course, you had some short loops and not just one. I said that, "My R&D wafer in the fab run much faster than yours, because my R&D engineer works three shifts and you only work one shift. So, your R&D wafer move eight hours a day, my work/move 24-hours a day. So, my wafers go three times faster, even if you are twice smarter than me, I still beat you up." <laughter>
https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10279267...
Meta Apple Microsoft Amazon Alphabet
... MAMAA it is
If you already have full occupation and you cannot import workers you will have shortages no matter how much you get paid, people will not get a 5y degree in one month no matter how much you pay.
In theory we could reach a point where all the workers are doing so well that even large pay won't draw them in. But companies don't wait to get anywhere near that point to start complaining about how they "can't" hire.
This is absurd, of course there are shortages. Sometimes, there is not enough of something for all you want to do, sure, some can buy their way out of it, but not all can.
Especially when you consider modern talk of the invisible hand, and then go back to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and see his one reference to the invisible hand in the book is of something that is against free trade between nations.