If the market is working then the mechanism for raises is driven by the relative costs of the alternatives to giving an employee a raise and the value of that i

If the market is working then the mechanism for raises is driven by the relative costs of the alternatives to giving an employee a raise and the value of that increase in labor to the company. Right now the value of the labor to the company is increasing because inflation is increasing what they charge for the end product and the ability to hire a cheaper workers in country is in the favor of the employee but other alternatives (offshoring, machinery/automation) are cheaper for many tasks so there can't really be raises that beat inflation across the whole labor pool right now. This is not the case in cheaper labor countries like Vietnam. I expect lots of factory workers there are getting raises above inflation now.