> "Labour shortages do not arise because of a lack of suitable workers, they occur instead because of inadequate immigration policies

This does appear to be an admission that labor shortages occur due to lack of workers. The authors propose a solution (immigration) to the problem, but in doing so pretend the problem doesn't exist.

The paper is fundamentally flawed in numerous technical ways also. The most overt is that they are looking at the current state of countries with low fertility rates. The consequences of low fertility lag the onset of low fertility by many decades, but are largely inescapable. Taken to an extreme, if everybody in a country just stopped having children, that country would look, from an economic point of view, excellent for at least a couple of decades.

For a real example, South Korea has a fertility rate of ~0.7 while Japan has a fertility rate of ~1.4. Yet South Korea seems to be doing okayish, while Japan has clearly entered into decline. The reason is because South Korea had a 3+ fertility rate all the way up to 1976, whereas Japan hasn't had a 3+ fertility rate since 1952. Give South Korea a couple of decades and it'll make the Japan of today look like a utopia. For that matter give Japan a couple of decades and it'll make the Japan of today look like a utopia - their decline is still just beginning, as they only hit the current lows in the 90s.

> The authors propose a solution (immigration) to the problem, but in doing so pretend the problem doesn't exist

It’s quite remarkable. They assert the problem doesn’t exist by essentially treating a highly debated policy change as inexorable.