I don't. Probably your definition of "engineer" is different from mine.
"Another problem is that us engineers are expected to have real-world, paid experience in whatever technology the hiring company uses"
Generalization and obviously not true. I have a company, I don't care about paid experience, in fact we hired lots of people from open source projects, or directly from University with no experience at all.
"At one time, a college degree and a demonstrable grasp of computing technology was all one needed. Companies were happy to train. No longer."
During the dotcom bubble anyone that could click a button was hired. But it was a bubble.
The better demonstration of grasping computing technology is actually having done something with a computer.
When computers filled a room it was impossible for people to code on their own. Now you could find people with college degree AND experience writing software for others or for their own.
"yet one cannot get a job writing Swift code, unless one already has PAID Swift experience on one's resume."
This is your belief not reality.
"It's not enough to just read a book."
Of course. Programming is not about reading books. The better programmer is not the one who reads the most books.
In fact, I consider books obsolete. Everybody in my company has free Lynda accounts.