I think it's a direct result of the old adage "Adding people to a late software project makes it later." Rather than bringing in a candidate who is not a 100% match, the team just pulls more overtime rather than dealing with the distraction of training. And since just about every project is always late, they never fix the structural problem of having too few talented developers on staff - they rely on the two or three veteran "geniuses" to pull off everything on time.
Also, business intelligence is difficult to hire for, because HR gets caught up in matching capital letters they don't understand (C++, C#, SQL) when what is really needed is someone who can conceptualize business problems and their technical solutions. There just aren't that many of those people, which is why job postings these days are almost always asking for someone with dozens of capital letters and 3-5 years of experience rather than the 20 year veteran who very often turns out to be a career office politician with a limited ability to learn. Add in the looming expense of ObamaCare, and it becomes clear why your corporate career is essentially over at 40 if you haven't jumped onto the management track.
I’m a recruiter at a huge software company based in the Bay area. We have far more open reqs than we can fill. Almost every new person we hire is employed and we’re luring him/her away. If they’re unemployed, it’s because they just came off contract or just recently got laid off.
If anyone wants to ask me any questions or to dispel any myths, feel free to fire away.