The OP's position is IMO wrong in that (rational) employers aren't incentivized to wait for the absolute lowest-price worker because of opportunity cost. Consider the example of a successful restaurant looking to fill the role of 'marketer'. The company is already profitable and could continue indefinitely without filling the role. However, the company is looking to fill this role precisely because it believes that it stands to profit a lot, and every day that the role goes unfilled they're losing out on that profit. So here the worker has some leverage. Further, the restaurant isn't the only game in town, the worker can have offers from multiple employers and parlay them against each other for still better offers. The wage ultimately depends on the size of the opportunity (the company won't pay the marketer 100% of the opportunity or it won't be worth hiring them) and the supply of marketers. Ultimately, the restaurant wants to hire the least-expensive marketer (ignoring variance in worker quality for sake of argument) without waiting too long (losing out on the opportunity). This is what a free market looks like--the OP is arguing that because an employer can theoretically avoid bankruptcy indefinitely without filling the position that the market is not free, but I think they misunderstand what "free market" means.