Major U.S. banks are seeing operating expenses rise as employee wages, along with bonuses and compensations, go up in a tight Omicron-tainted labor market where companies struggle to hire and retain workers. Investment bank Goldman Sachs was forced to increase compensation and benefits to hold on to their staff, leading to a 23 percent surge in fourth-quarter operating expenses compared to 2020, and a 10 percent increase from the third quarter (pdf). “There is real wage inflation everywhere in the economy, everywhere,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said on a Tuesday conference call with analysts. Wages have expanded across the board, according to data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but the multi-decade inflation hike has dented much of the enthusiasm with Americans who have lower amounts of disposable income. With almost $4 trillion in assets under management, JPMorgan Chase, one of America’s biggest banks, is seeing performance-based pays swell …