The market has noticed that there are insufficient programmers to meet demand.
I'm not buying this. Every company these days have insane interviewing processes that span multiple days and involve hours of unpaid work. Clearly there's such an abundance of programmers that it is cheaper for companies to find the "perfect" candidate than having to take on someone less-than-perfect and invest in training them. They are certainly in the position to make programmers live up to their own expectations, but right now they are in a very comfortable situation where all the costs associated with training are pushed over to the state/society and the individual.