I think the last "true" pilot shortage was the 1960's. Major airlines were going to colleges and recruiting people to be pilots, ab initio.

But, that was long before pilot puppy mills.

"Louis Smith, president of FLTops.com, has been covering pilot hiring for more than 30 years. According to Smith, pilot shortages have been incorrectly predicted by experts every decade since the last true shortage in the 1960s. Airline industry veterans will remember airlines advertising for pilots in the 1960s and paying for primary flight training to entice new pilots into the industry. That may seem mind-boggling today, but it happened. "