"They can’t get enough good, qualified young umpires because of the amount of abuse that’s thrown their way. And this is the case from LL to MLB. "
It is a vicious circle. They get abuse because they are bad, they are bad because the abuse drives away the good ones. Many umps do not help themselves either. They don't put an end to the chirping early in the game. If you get a coach who wants to be the next Earl Weaver, a simple "Coach - I hear you, but if you keep that up, you will be watching the game from the parking lot" goes a long way. In 10+ years of doing mostly youth ball I have only had 3 ejections. One parent, one coach, one 10yo kid (trucked the catcher). The coach was in a Cal Ripken district tourny and when I reported it to the director, I found out that they have had complaints about the coach previously in the tourny. Because the actions wer not addressed when they first appeared, they grew worse.
Not enough time is spent during the training to teach the de-escalation needed in the job.
There is also the real issue ... $. I het $40 for a youth game 46/60 $50 for 50/70. The game goes 2 hours, prep time and travel time... say 3 hours all in. Thats about $13 per hour. I could earn more than that with benefits working at Starbucks or Dunkin.
Other sports are also stealing the talent. Lacrosse gets $65 for a 1 hour time limit game.
I don't think there is a good solution to the shortage of officials. There are a lot of forces at play.