Vol EMS is dying in this country.
I'll answer this one with a simple answer: call volumes are rising, education requirements are rising, and many people don't have the time to keep up with both, while working full time. Not only that, but EMS isn't cheap (even a volunteer system isn't free), so many towns are outsourcing the EMS service to a zero bidding for profit entity, for the short term gains, only to find they aren't meeting their requirements and the cycle repeats again.
While I have spend the last 12 or so years working for 100% paid entities, I have no problems with volunteers or volunteer EMS, provided they do the same job as their paid counterparts. Same response times, same competencies, same training standards, etc. I've seen plenty of poorly run paid EMS agencies, as well as poorly run volunteer EMS agencies; as well as paid EMS with abysmal response times (but it's ok, because they are paid, and only doing the best they can with the resources they are given, just ask them

), and volunteers with fewer resources and larger response areas.
The truth is, EMS (as a whole) will provide whatever the AHJ will accept. Sometime a volunteer system is acceptable. sometimes the AHJ will push for a career system. and sometimes that career system will result in fewer EMS resources than the volunteer system had. But here is the question for you: if the town/county/area were to fund their EMS system 24/7, with enough career employees and staffed units to do the job properly, why would you want a volunteer system?
We've been feeling it hard in this area, it's been brought up plenty here. You can see in job offering and training that some places are now paying people to be paramedic interns (Santa Barbara, CA) and even pay them to go to EMT school in some places.
With all due respect, there isn't a paramedic shortage. There is a shortage of paramedics willing to work for crappy companies for low pay for long hours, where their employer will post their job before their body is cold after they drop of a MI after working 80 hours weeks including forced OT, and have ran their butts off the entire shift. While not every system is that bad, you can't disagree that low pay + crappy conditions = the good paramedics look for better positions elsewhere....
And as
@CCCSD said, when the FD requires 4 PMs on an engine, and pays their guys much much more than the ambulance companies (and give them beds to sleep in), can you see why ambulance companies are having trouble keeping and hiring people?