Focus on labor cost reduction is something that I have long considered just another in a long chain of broken management fads, especially when dealing with service market.

People are starting to realize true costs of employee turnover and poor service.

Unfortunately this type of equilibrium finding takes time. First people have to come up with competitive business models that require a higher standard of labor. I think this thinking will continue to expand, especially as enterprises become more data driven and come to quantify the true ROI regarding labor.

For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)