The finance people are the guardians of the company coffers. Their job is to see that the rest of the company spends as little as possible and still be successful. That's a tall order, unless you have a crystal ball. Some may choose to stay the same, others may raise their ranges and others may lower them. Each firm will have to assess it's own economic health in order to come up with their strategy for pay.
Surveys Let's look at where companies get information about salaries.
Obviously, you can't call your competitor and ask what they're paying their technicians or engineers. So, some bright folks established compensation consulting firms. Unique jobs could be paid whatever the company wants. Part of the challenge is to compare responsibility for responsibility, not job titles. An engineer at one firm may be performing similar, slightly similar, or completely different responsibilities for the same titled job at another firm.