I've never had a problem hiring great programmers, and it's not difficult at all really. It's insanely difficult though for common companies when they are not a good or interesting place to work, or they don't want to pay competitively for the people they need, or they have incorrect ideas about what sort of talent they really need. There is no shortage of great developers out there. The shortage is in companies that have management with any clue. These companies obviously are unable to understand or correct this though.