> You'd rather deal with attrition costs of losing a trained, experienced employee and having to find new candidates and train someone new, than to just give yo

> You'd rather deal with attrition costs of losing a trained, experienced employee and having to find new candidates and train someone new, than to just give your current employees the pay raise they obviously deserve? The job market is a market, meaning it's a game between buyers and sellers. "Deserve" does not exist there. The companies are obviously counting on the fact that majority of people will prefer to stay put instead of risk jumping ship for a salary increase - which is in fact what happens in practice.