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This makes sense, that there are artificial barriers in place to people moving up. If there are fewer officials, period, this is problematic, because it prevents games from being covered. There are several possibilities to get around this: take "ready-made" officials from college/university intramural programs, recruit downward by getting local college officials to work high school games on their days off and to mentor high school officials, or accelerate newer officials judiciously by providing targeted training (put subvarsity officials in a program to teach 3P mechanics and have them work rec/travel/adult games that would otherwise be 2P as 3P games for experience, with spot varsity assignments to the best trainees/those near the end of the program, or assign MS officials to work 8th/9th grade rec/travel games, with some freshman/JV assignments to get the best of them next-level exposure. Those with existing experience (transfers/dual members/intramural officials) can be evaluated and accelerated as needed).
Any other solutions to alleviate the numbers crunch and reduce artificial constraints? Recruiting college officials down might put experienced officials in the playoffs or on high-profile games, while allowing younger officials to work alongside and learn from them.
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