The industry always calls it a "skills gap" (guilty as charged here), but our developing theory is that its an gap in education. Not privatized business-like education like ours, but in the core standard of education. In Europe certainly this is the more relevant discussion anyway as mandates are falling into place in the UK and other countries that enforce children to gain a rudimentary understanding of code through their traditional schooling. We're actually working really hard to help with this effort with a CPD for teaching teachers that we just launched. Yes its a savvy business move, but I'm really excited that we're trying to approach what we feel is actually the core issue.
Let me know if you have a resource for that argument, and let me know your thoughts on my comment!
A shortage of skills is often the interpretation people get (or at least voice publicly) when they think labor costs are too high.
e: Not that I'm arguing that it's the case (or the alternate). You'll run into business politics, politics politics, lies, lies people tell themselves, and statistics before getting any actual insight on the issue.
The only convincing argument I've heard is that wages aren't increasing to match the reported demand. Which doesn't indicate anything directly. It suggests sufficient labor pools but rests on the assumption that if there are insufficient talent pools employers would pay more to attract talent.