So in the bay area they found out that the largest employers actually conspired to not hire each other's senior employees. Which serves to decrease mobility for people and makes it so their wages become lower. When I worked in Canada it seemed like companies were very desperate for talent but weren't really willing to pay beyond a certain amount. It's hard to say if there is just a natural ceiling for pay or if it's actually some sort of setup to keep the compensation at that level.
This is why market demand works for the benefit of the employee.
> "Only when Facebook declined did Google consider how to retain its employees, the judge said. It boosted "the base salary of all of its salaried employees by 10% and provided an immediate cash bonus of $1,000 to all employees,""
This is a fascinating question. My guess is that all industries have different levels of collusion/wage-fixing. If something as big as THE TECH INDUSTRY can get away with colluding to keep a ceiling on wages, then surely every single other smaller industry can as well.
There are many ways to suppress wages besides wage-fixing collusion. About 25% of American workers have non-compete clauses in their work agreements, for instance.
