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Depends on the profit margin in a field. Some industries have razor thin margins. Unless your competitors do the same as you do (and in some industries, your competitors are in other countries with different standards of living), you don't have a whole lot of choice.

Software/SaaS is able to give ever increasing wages because of near infinite supply of investor money and/or insane profit margins (which won't last). Some other industries, not so much.




Labour is no different to any other business input.

If you can't afford the inputs you need at the price the market is setting, you can't afford to run a profitable business.


Yes, but even in industries with razor-thin margins the solution to a labor shortage is to increase salaries. Some of the companies will go under, and the most productive ones will survive. It's capitalism, quite simply.


The solution to a labor shortage is to increase salaries, increase productivity, or automate.


Or better, all of the above :)




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