No, it is a myth, there are lots of qualified, competent programmers out there:

"But again and again, he points out that qualified engineers do exist, and they’re being shut out of companies for what amounts to a cultural stigma about what sociologists would call “the other.”"

This is the point.

Edit: I think is important say that the "there's a terrible programmer shortage" belief is a myth, in the sense that it is a dramatic story that impels people towards certain behaviors and to say that this myth is wrong, in the sense that it excludes many people, in order to add some kind of sanity to the hiring process.