> that means if employers want to pay workers fairly they need to pay a lot more than in other countries with a cheaper economy.

"Pay workers fairly" isn't something that companies in a competitive market can choose whether to do. If labor costs are high, they can either pay them, move operations to somewhere else, or stop operating. If labor costs are low, paying more than that would cause them to have higher prices than competitors.

What this implies is that countries with e.g. inflated housing costs will see operations to move to other countries whenever that's feasible, and indeed this is what we see. This isn't companies choosing to do this -- different companies will do different things, but then the ones doing the thing that requires them to have higher prices will be out-competed.

You can't fix that by admonishing them to "pay workers fairly", you can only fix it by increasing the domestic supply of housing and energy.