Well, pedantically, employees is an aggregate term, and higher salary costs (either by higher individual wages or more individual wages) meets the conditions.

Well, pedantically, employees is an aggregate term, and higher salary costs (either by higher individual wages or more individual wages) meets the conditions. Less pedantically: the focus was on more, better trained employees, and more experienced employees. In the later two situations, this generally translates to individuals being better paid -- experienced workers demand higher wages, as to better trained ones. Further, a large number of the faiure examples given were about firing the higher cost employees (experienced, trained ones, and full-time ones) in favor of cheaper ones, again implying that the per-employee wages were dropped as well.