Shortage of vets

I saw a very interesting document from one of the veterinary industry recruiters last week.
It's ugly. There is a significant national shortage of vets and a very long list of vacancies for vets.
The worst hit are the three big corporates. Vet Partners, Greencross and National Vet care. There are over 200 vacancies for vet positions among these three alone according to the document I read.
The privately owned practices manage to fill the shortfall basically through the owner veterinarians working more hours to cover. The corporates however have to pay for every hour employed vets work and pay overtime for excess hours to cover shortfalls.
There is also a preference being shown by employee vets to work for private operators.
This is not just an Australian issue. The issue is the same in the UK. The UK recruiting agencies are very active in Australia offering flights, accomodation, holidays and incentives for Australian vets to come and work in the UK.
The result will be increased vet wages and reduced margins for practices. I don't believe that the market will bear any significant pricing increases at the moment to cover these costs. Evidenced by GXL reporting lower case numbers across their fleet.
Perhaps we have hit peak vet ?