People don't like paying more for the same thing. There can be cultural reasons which make this more sticky in some places like France perhaps. I came across

People don't like paying more for the same thing. There can be cultural reasons which make this more sticky in some places like France perhaps. I came across a survey in Japan where companies also said they were having trouble hiring and only 1/11 companies said they would consider raising wages. America has the highest software developer salaries in the world because there is more of a cultural acceptance of the free market and realization that it can make good business sense to pay more. I come from a place where salaries advance very slowly and unfortunately, in places like this, companies would rather pass on good candidates than pay more. It means their company grows slower. But they get to keep the illusion of control. It comes down to the founder's dilemma [1] that permeates through the culture of a company - Does the owner want to be rich or king? If the company owner/managers are more interested in being king, they will generally not pay higher salaries unless the situation gets so dire than they begrudgingly are forced to. You want to try to work for companies where they want to be rich. Unfortunately, in a place where the general culture does not encourage this, these companies will be very tough to find. [1] https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-dilemma https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-dilemma