As far as the United States, the airline industry is actually picking up considerably. The regional airlines are ALL needing pilots and the majority of them are creating gateway programs. These gateway programs are actually hiring current university students (well before they have even their commercial certificate) and paying them while they are in college. They even get flight benefits.
With the mandatory retirement exodus here in the states at the major "legacy" airlines, there is a LOT of movement in the industry. And to put it simply, there are not as many qualified candidates than there were even 10 years ago. Because the supply of pilots is going down, while the demand is increasing, the wages and quality of life is going to need to increase in order to attract more pilots to certain companies.
I work as a CFI-I at a flight school and we are constantly hiring large classes of new hires in order to make up for the large amounts of instructors leaving for regional airline jobs.
While I worked at United Airlines a year and half ago, they were talking about loosing over 1,000 pilots a year. One year (I don't remember which one) had more than 2,000 pilots leaving. And these are only forced retirements, so they don't include voluntary retirements. With in 10 years, something like 80-90% of the pilots at United Airlines will be forced to retire due to age. (If I remember correctly, these numbers included both COA and UAL). And these are only UAL numbers!
The industry is certainly looking much brighter here in the states than 10 years ago. Also, don't forget Asian airlines. There is a huge demand for pilots out there because their (relatively) new airline industry is exploding. And many Asian nations don't have enough local pilots to satisfy demand, so they need to hire foreign pilots.
As the saying goes, a pilot's office has the best view! Best of luck to every aspiring pilot out there!
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CFI-I, CSEL, CMEL
