The competition pool is huge but also the number of jobs. I'm not sure he would have it easier if he specialized in some esoteric think Erlang. Yes he would compete against less people but also have barely any openings to apply to.
As someone else mentioned here, Walmart apparently has over 1000 software related openings right now. I know a few companies outside the traditional 'Silicon Valley' company ecosystem trying to hire developers and I can promise you they're not getting 100s of applications within a few hours. The jobs are definitely out there, they're just not where most people are looking and perhaps not in a field, company or geographic location that are most people's first choice.