He's a lying shitweasal
The U.S. tech job market is FUBAR. Low pay, ridiculous skills requirements*, H1-B undercutting citizens, short term contracts that nobody can live on. The list is endless and includes everything in your nightmares like worthless certs and clueless suits who make the pointy haired boss in BOFH look sane.
I get contacted everyday for short term contracts, (3 or fewer months) 1000 miles away for shit pay. Take a wild guess what my response is?
The bottom line: if you can't fill jobs, you aren't fucking paying enough. Live by capitalism, die by capitalism. You really do get what you pay for when it comes to experienced IT employees.
(* got a call for a desktop position that required travel to set up servers. My reply email was not nice. I get variations of these all time. Must have dozens of skills, pay less than $50K)