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Pent-up demand allows companies to get away with even large price rises. Consumer prices may have risen even faster in May than in April, according to forecasts. As a result, returns, which held up in the first quarter, are expected to do so again in the second, says Jonathan Golub of Credit Suisse, a bank. Big firms’ net margins have actually been rising. This suggests that as yet, far from forcing companies to absorb the extra costs, inflation may have given them some extra pricing power.
壓抑許久的消費者需求使得公司即使大幅漲價也能夠逃脫懲罰。據預測，5月份居民消費價格漲幅可能比4月份還要快。因此，瑞士信貸銀行的喬納森•戈盧布表示，第一季度維持良好的回報率預計將在第二季度再次上漲。大公司的凈利潤率實際上一直在上升。這表明，到目前為止，通脹非但沒有迫使企業耗費額外成本，反而可能給了它們一些額外的定價權。
Plenty of businesses are, however, preparing for a time when they can ratchet prices up no longer. Sridhar Tayur of the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, who consults with three large companies, says that each of them is redesigning products to eliminate waste and streamline manufacturing. Mr Adamczyk said in January that he had established an internal Honeywell task-force to respond to inflation (though he was vague about what exactly it might do). Lineage, a logistics firm with 200 cold-storage warehouses across America, says it has created several such teams. One focuses on avoiding supply bottlenecks in critical construction projects, another on recruiting workers in a tight market.
然而，許多企業正在為無法再提高價格的時刻的到來做準備。卡內基梅隆大學泰珀商學院的斯里達爾·塔尤爾在為三家大公司提供咨詢服務后表示，每家公司都在重新設計產品以消除浪費并簡化生產。阿達姆奇克先生在一月份表示，他已經建立了一個霍尼韋爾內部特別工作組來應對通貨膨脹（盡管他對特別工作組的具體工作內容含糊不清）。在美國擁有200個冷藏倉庫的物流公司Lineage表示，他們已經創建了幾個這樣的團隊。一個團隊著重避免關鍵建筑項目的供應瓶頸，另一個側重于在緊張的市場中招聘工人。
Rising labour costs are chief executives’ biggest headache by a long way. Some companies are trying to keep a lid on future wage increases by using one-off inducements, such as signing bonuses, to attract new recruits. Most, though, have no choice but to raise pay. Andrew Obin of Bank of America reckons that American manufacturers are paying existing employees about 4% more than a year ago. But, he estimates, workers can expect a pay rise of 13% if they switch jobs. Wages for non-supervisory workers rose at an annualised rate of nearly 7% between April and May, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics.
勞動力成本上升會是首席執行官們最頭疼的長遠難題。一些公司試圖通過簽訂獎金等一次性獎勵來吸引新員工，并以此控制未來的工資增長。不過，大多數公司除了加薪別無選擇。美國銀行的安德魯•歐賓估計，美國制造商向現有員工支付的薪酬比一年前增加了約4%。但是他估計，如果員工跳槽，他們的工資會上漲13%。美國勞工統計局的數據顯示，非管理崗員工的工資在4月至5月期間年化增長率接近7%。
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