[rhelz]

Surely, there are many different senses for the word "shortage", so, even if you are pragmatic, its a good idea to be pedantic as to which one you are using.

When I claim a free market has no shortages, I'm using "shortage" in the sense that demand does not exceed supply. "Demand" and "Supply" are also very carefully defined by economists. It's a theorem that under these definitions, in the condition of a free market, there are no shortages.

The market for programmers is certainly not a completely free market, but its close enough that if somebody says they can't find any programmers, it means they are not willing or able to pay market wages for programmers.