I read the book before I saw the movie – and I was terrified. It was actually a novelization of the movie Alien written by Alan Dean Foster, and shortly after reading it, I saw the movie and was even more terrified. It also had the perfect (and now iconic) tagline:
“In space no one can hear you scream.”
That was a long time ago in the summer of 1979. Besides the frightening xenomorph aliens throughout the Alien franchise, I remember thinking, These “space truckers” are screwed and the company owns them.
But that was the extent of my thoughts back then. Decades later I listened to an NPR Planet Money episode titled The real horror of ‘Alien’ and how it explains why we’re not paid enough and thought, There really were screwed.
I’m sure most of us have heard of monopolies: single companies that are the only providers of specific goods or services, and face no meaningful competition. Because there are no alternatives, these sellers have the power to dictate prices and control the market.
But have you ever heard of a monopsony? Me neither, and I read a lot of job market and economic articles and research. A monopsony is when a single employer dominates a labor market, and because they are the only buyer of labor, the company gains unchecked power to mistreat, control, and underpay its workers.
The original Alien movie accurately illustrates several of these labor market dynamics, including:
- Negative amenities: The “space truckers” work highly dangerous jobs with poor conditions, such as risking death and spending long periods away from home in cryosleep.
- Shrouded attributes: The company forces the crew to undertake deadly, uncompensated side missions by burying hidden clauses in their contracts, threatening them with a total forfeiture of their pay if they refuse.
Some labor economists argue that in the modern real world, workers are restricted by concentrated markets where industries consolidate, leaving fewer employers to choose from. Additionally, companies limit job mobility through “search frictions” (the costly and exhausting process of finding a new job) and “monopsony by artifice” (using legal barriers like non-compete and no-poach agreements to trap workers).
The latter don’t hold up legally anymore. And the “search frictions” concept is completely counterintuitive to the recommendations that come out of our CandE Benchmark Research each year and the work we do with our CandE and Survale Enterprise customers. However, finding a new job can be costly and exhausting, especially for salaried professionals, management, and senior leadership candidates in today’s painful job market. But with monopsonies, hourly workers also can and do have painful job market experiences.
And if you’re the only employer in “town”, what choice do job seekers have? Mobility is too costly for many due to the cost of living and housing, so moving to another city, state, and/or country isn’t realistic (and sometimes the grass isn’t always greener). Workers can also fight back against the poor wages and conditions caused by monopsonies through strong labor unions, minimum wage laws, and antitrust enforcement. But that takes organization time and resources and labor unions have struggled and decreased dramatically over the past 20 years.
Based on my research, there are several prominent industries that serve as modern monopsony examples where workers face heavily consolidated labor markets:
Healthcare (Nurses and Hospital Staff)
Hospital consolidation has accelerated rapidly. When local hospital systems merge, the number of independent healthcare employers in a specific geographic region drops sharply.
The Impact: A registered nurse or radiologic tech might find that a single hospital network owns 70% to 80% of the facilities in their metropolitan area. Studies have shown that when hospitals merge in concentrated markets, wage growth for skilled nursing staff stagnates because nurses cannot easily switch to a competitor to negotiate a higher salary.
Meatpacking and Agriculture
The meat processing industry (beef, pork, and poultry) is one of the most starkly consolidated sectors in the country, dominated by a tiny handful of massive corporations.
The Impact: Slaughterhouses and processing plants are usually located in rural areas. For workers in these communities, a single plant is often the only major industrial employer for miles. This severe lack of competition allows companies to keep wages low and maintain incredibly fast, physically punishing line speeds. If a worker quits due to unsafe conditions, there is literally nowhere else in town to go.
Digital Tech Platforms (The Gig Economy)
While tech platforms market themselves as hubs of independence, the market for gig work (ridesharing and food delivery) is effectively a duopoly (you know the players).
The Impact: App-based couriers and drivers face automated, algorithmic wage-setting. Because there are only one or two viable platforms to find consistent work in a given city, these companies can unilaterally alter pay structures, cut base rates, or change algorithmic “tips” with minimal pushback. The workers have no alternative platform to take their labor to.
Retail and Warehousing Logistics
The explosion of e-commerce and big-box retail has heavily concentrated regional labor markets around fulfillment giants (again, you know the players).
The Impact: In many suburban and rural “logistics hubs,” a fulfillment or distribution center operates as the primary blue-collar employer. Because these companies dominate the local demand for warehousing labor, they effectively set the baseline wage for the entire region, leaving workers with little leverage to demand better hours, safer quotas, or stronger benefits.
Also, when companies and industries merge, and there aren’t new companies entering those markets, the loss of employer competition can and does squeeze workers’ paychecks and other job options available to them.
These are all market realities that we don’t talk much about when it comes to recruiting, hiring, and improving the candidate experience. When employers have all the market power, candidates must find ways to artificially create leverage or step outside the monopsony’s reach. Here’s what candidates should do:
- Build “Transferable” Skills: Monopsonies love company-specific or highly niche skills because they lock you into their ecosystem. Counter this by aggressively developing skills that are valuable across different industries (e.g., AI skills, project management, data analysis, software proficiency).
- Embrace Remote Work: The absolute best way to break a regional monopsony (like a town where one factory or hospital employs everyone) is to remove geography from the equation. Look for remote-first companies to force local employers to compete with national wage rates.
- Leverage Collective Bargaining: There is strength in numbers. Joining or forming a labor union is historically the most effective counterweight to a monopsonistic employer. Unions force the employer to negotiate with the entire workforce as a single unit rather than exploiting individuals.
- Explore “Gig” or Fractional Work: Diversifying your income streams through consulting, freelancing, or contract work can reduce your dependency on a single dominant employer.
If you are a smaller company trying to hire in a market dominated by a giant, you will not win a direct war of attrition. You have to offer what the monopsony cannot. Here’s what smaller employers should do:
- Compete on Non-Monetary Benefits: If the dominant firm is suppressing wages but you can’t afford to outbid them, win on culture and flexibility. Offer 4-day work weeks, asynchronous schedules, robust mental health support, or generous PTO. Many workers will accept competitive (but lower) wages to escape a toxic or rigid corporate giant.
- Offer Fast-Track Upward Mobility: Monopsonies are often bureaucratic nightmares where career progression is sluggish. You can woo candidates by offering clear, rapid pathways to leadership, direct mentorship, and equity/stock options that tie their success to the company’s growth.
- Target “Niche” Talent Pools: Look for skilled workers whom the dominant employer routinely overlooks or undervalues (e.g., neurodivergent individuals, workers re-entering the market after a career break, or self-taught professionals).
- Champion Regulatory Compliance: Keep a close eye on antitrust laws and labor regulations. If the dominant firm is using illegal non-compete clauses or engaging in wage-fixing cartels, smaller employers can benefit from regulatory crackdowns or blow the whistle to level the playing field.
In a monopsony, the dominant employer’s greatest weapon is the illusion that you have no other choices – “In space no one can hear you scream”. For candidates, the goal is to create choices. For smaller employers, the goal is to be the better choice.
I’ll never look at Alien the same way again.
