> Employers strive to pay employees the minimum they can bear, on employer's terms

I don't think it's worth thinking like this. An employee's salary is floored by their value to any company, and ceilinged by their value to the company currently employing them.

The absolute numbers are hard to accurately calculate for every employee, and change all the time, so at best, the limits are fuzzy.

That said, do you care to guess where in this floor-to-ceiling range the employers' ideal would fall? Does that answer conflict with my thesis?