It certainly would benefit recruiting agencies; 20% of a bigger $ goes right to their bottom line. Not that they do that, of course, but I'd be slightly skeptical of any #s that come out of recruiting agencies.
In this case, any fluffing recruiting agencies do actually works in favour of good software developers.
You could make a claim that if the salaries weren't pumped by the recruiters, the employers could hire more people, but by all accounts lack of jobs isn't currently a problem for good developers.
You could make a claim that if the salaries weren't pumped by the recruiters, the employers could hire more people, but by all accounts lack of jobs isn't currently a problem for good developers.