As is always the case when a claim is made about "companies having trouble finding developers" of some sort: Are they actually having trouble finding developers despite offering top-of-market salary, remote work and gold plated benefits? Or are they the usual "we think we offer above average salary with great benefits!" companies who get no interest from developers and conclude there's a shortage?
I tend to agree with your viewpoint, particularly when it comes to arguments about the need to mass-import developers from overseas. Are you struggling to recruit due to a genuine shortage? Or are you trying to get people with good experience to work for you for £30K pa?
A few more well=-paid positions might make a difference to the perceived value of technical staff in the country's small to medium businesses.
I suspect you are from the US, and I am from Europe, so this might be a problem. But still, if you are willing to write me an email, my address can be found through my github account that is linked in my profile.
If that's interesting, reply in the positive here and I'll ping you the details of the company and the agency I've been working through. They have a bunch of people from around Europe, and AFAICT one travels in from Germany each week.
It's all subjective, of course, and partly I'm just bored of doing the same thing for so long.
C is a language invented in the 70s. If you kept up with thread APIS when they became usable in the late 90s you could quite easily have had a 40 year career in one tech stack, and be looking at a bit of consultancy by now (if you haven't moved in to management or other areas).
So even without keeping current on frameworks and languages, the idea that knowledge becomes obsolete in our field after just a few years is wrong. You do need to keep an eye on wider trends and newer tools, but still.
That said, there is still ageism in this arena. And I'm breaking out because, really, there are better things to be doing in 2017 :)