Labour

The steps involved in determining the labour cost are as follow :

1. The type of work has to be clearly established. 
2. A decision is made about the composition of the work crew. 
3. Productivity factors for that crew to do that work have to be determined from company or published records (standard data books). 
4. The hourly or daily labour rates to employ such a crew are added up to produce a total hourly or daily cost. 
5. The total hourly or daily cost is divided by the productivity factor to produce the estimated cost. 

The factors involved in productivity of labour have already been discussed in detail.

By the way of examples, the following extracts from the report on "productivity projects in building industry" issued by National Building Organization (NBO), are given below :

For similar details of many other work components, "Standard Data Books" published by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) or Public Works Department of States can be referred to. The numbers given under crew (comprising different type of craftsmen) refer to so many man-days, each day comprising 8 hours of work. Wherever, labour-day is given in fraction, it should be taken that the services of that particular labourer are not required for the full day. For example, mason - 1/4 no., indicates that the services of the

mason are required for 1/4 day only.

As already mentioned, these numbers are to be multiplied by the daily wages payable to the different types of labour and added together for each item to arrive at the total labour cost for that out-turn quantity of that particular item.

For example, let us take the same item as in the previous section, viz. "construction of brick masonry built in cement mortar using metric bricks". The labour required as per Standard Data Book for an out-turn of 2.83 cu m (100 cft) is as follows :

Masons    2 1/4

Mazdoor  4 1/2

Bhishti        1/2

Let the following be the daily wages of the labour at the particular site of work.

[Masons  :  Rs. 150]  [Mazdoor  : Rs. 100]  [ Bhishti  :  Rs. 851]

Then, the total cost of constructing 2.83 cu m of brick masonry is

(2 1/4 x  150 ) + (4 1/2  x l00) + ( 1/2 x  85 ) = Rs. 780

Therefore, for 1 cu m of brick masonry = 780/2.83 = Rs. 276

Thus, total material and labour cost of 1 cu m of brick masonry = 1611 + 276 = Rs. 1887.