Public employers are resisting allowing pay rises (which would help some to meet these additional costs) because of the impact this could have on inflation and the argument that increasing pay will mean job cuts.

I imagine that similar arguments are being used in the private sector too, but the threat of redundancy and lack of unionisation and collective bargaining agreements makes this possibility even more acute for workers. Yet the unfairness of it is that the ones at the top will still keep receiving their bonuses and disproportionately large pay packets.

Ad astra per aspera