I assume you mean 1. But if they're complaining they can't get enough engineers, it can hardly be that they're also hoarding them, right? At the very least, the companies that are a) paying the most and b) looking for ways to access a larger labor pool have got to be using the engineers they have at near maximum efficiency. Otherwise, those would be weird levers to pull. They actually are the companies that in an honest market get the engineers anyway; they already pay at the top of the market. That they've dodged paying for it in full doesn't change that.