Entitled to what? These firms seem to feel they are entitled to relaxed immigration policy as well, and that wages collusion should be BAU if they don't get their way - yet it's entitled to think that a company should train an employee to do the job they want them to do?

Keep in mind that we're not talking about teaching people computer science in the abstract, or turning non-technical people into engineers. People applying for programming jobs should be able to demonstrate some level of general competence of course. But if your HR department has a laundry list of keywords it is pattern-matching CVs against, with the result that many eminently-qualified candidates are dismissed without so much as a phone call or even a Codility screen or whatever, then you either need to take another look at in-house training or quit the constant bleating about a shallow talent pool.