And how do they arrive at the budgeted number? Lots of companies want to ensure they are paying a sufficiently high number to get sufficiently capable employees in a competitive market. While many (including me) find things like Pave gross, it's not a one way street, they can push wages up.
You’re thinking of the actual budget for a position not what a company could in theory budget.
A small businesses owner who pays themselves whatever is left over after expenses doesn’t care about what other companies pay, the company only has so much money. Apple could increase salaries up to the point where they make zero profit, but the goal is profit maximization not salary maximization.
It’s fundamentally the attempt to limit salaries that causes companies to look at the overall market.
Small business owners aren't the target market and are likely to not use such a product.
Hiring well is hard - it's not super obvious if you aren't paying enough or your company isn't desirable or what else is the cause of not seeing good candidates. While in theory you could solve that by wildly overpaying, in practice you have to be able to justify your decision to higher ups in most cases, and pointing to a tool that shows what you really need to pay to get good people can be very helpful. I still find it gross, but, there are practical situations where it will drive salaries higher.
What you just described is speeding up a process not increasing wages.
If a company simply isn’t offering enough money they aren’t going to get the workers they want. Which then forces the company to either go without or increase their compensation, just like how every other market works.
> your company isn't desirable or what else is the cause
The clearest example of this principle is companies eventually learn they need to pay the asshole tax. Market research may suggest X is a reasonable number, but they simply don’t get enough people without paying appropriately.
> will drive salaries higher
It will drive some offers higher and get workers sooner, but an offer not accepted is a salary that doesn’t exist.
> If a company simply isn’t offering enough money they aren’t going to get the workers they want.
I've never seen a worker walk away once an offer is made. Getting workers in the door in the first place is hard, though.
Which means that it is really the marketing that needs to be improved. But how...
> how every other market works.
Every other market that has suffered from this kind of marketing problem starts to publish sale data! The labour market has just been slow to catch up with everyone else here. No doubt because, historically, getting people in the door was easy. That has only somewhat recently started to change.
Or only the most desperate stumble through my door?
But either way, it's pretty clear that the prevailing problem is finding people at all. Not just me, but most businesses have been struggling with the same problem. You can't tempt someone with more money if you have no way of communicating with them.
Which goes back to the marketing problem. Absolutely there is a marketing problem, but publishing price data is exactly how other markets have solved the problem. We shouldn't be shocked or disappointed that labour is going the same way. That's how markets deal with the problem.
