Just from my observation, that became the APC chant the past few years, when there was absolutely NO hiring and there were thousands of pilots on the street. Everyone expected when hiring to resume, the airlines would have minimums near 5,000 total time and over 10,000 to be competitive. But in reality, most people were/are getting hired just around 1,000 and only about half are those furloughed pilots.

However, how many of those pilots wanted to give up what they had already worked for to start right back at the bottom at first year FO rates. As a result, while there are still lots of furloughed pilots, the number who are actually applying is not as great.

The other thing was, it seems that those high time pilots were the ones who were getting rejected for unknown reasons. 7,000TT, 500TPIC 121, etc. That one confused me a bit but many people were thinking that the regionals were rejecting these people because they may have been "over qualified." They know that as soon as things pick up, they'll have the time to jump ship immediately and go to a major. But if you pick up a seasoned CFI around 1000 hours, they know s/he'll be there for some time. At least till they upgrade.