What are examples of direct labor?
Sophia Koch
Updated on December 30, 2025
Direct labor includes all employees responsible for producing a company’s products or services. Some examples of direct labor include quality control engineers, assembly line workers, production managers and delivery truck drivers.
What is meaning of direct labor?
Direct labor refers to the salaries and wages paid to workers that can be directly attributed to specific products or services. It includes the cost of regular working hours, overtime hours worked, payroll taxes, unemployment tax, Medicare, employment insurance, etc.
What is direct and indirect labor?
While direct labor comprises work done on certain products or services, indirect labor is employee work that can’t be traced back or billed to services or goods produced.
What is an example of a direct labor cost?
Direct labor costs include the labor costs of all employees actually working on materials to convert them into finished goods. The wages paid to a construction worker, a pizza delivery driver, and an assembler in an electronics company are examples of direct labor.
Is direct Labour a direct cost?
A direct cost is a price that can be directly tied to the production of specific goods or services. Direct costs examples include direct labor and direct materials. Although direct costs are typically variable costs, they can also be fixed costs.
Is machine a direct labor?
When a business manufactures products, direct labor is considered to be the labor of the production crew that produces goods, such as machine operators, assembly line operators, painters, and so forth.
Are benefits considered direct labor?
Direct labor is easy to understand and identify. Very simply, it’s the wages you pay employees. However, these expenses include any benefits that are provided to that employee, as well, such as healthcare.
Is labor a direct or indirect cost?
The cost of labor is broken into direct and indirect (overhead) costs. Direct costs include wages for the employees that produce a product, including workers on an assembly line, while indirect costs are associated with support labor, such as employees who maintain factory equipment.
How do you find direct labor cost when not given?
Ten workers normally work 400 hours in a week, so the standard or average cost of one hour of direct labor equals $9,000 divided by 400, or $22.50. To calculate the time required to complete one unit, divide the total direct labor hours by the number of units that the workers can be expected to complete.
Is labor cost fixed or variable?
The labor cost is considered a fixed cost. When you pay only for the number of hours worked on an as-needed basis – which is usually the case when hiring temporary or contract laborers or piece-workers – then it is considered a variable cost. It goes up or down with production.
What should labor cost?
Labor cost should be around 20 to 35% of gross sales. Cutting labor costs is a balancing act. Finding ways to streamline labor costs is rooted in reducing costs without sacrificing workforce morale or productivity.
Is direct labor a direct cost?
Is direct labor a fixed cost?
All costs that do not fluctuate directly with production volume are fixed costs. Fixed costs include various indirect costs and fixed manufacturing overhead costs. Variable costs include direct labor, direct materials, and variable overhead.
Which type of cost is labor?
Labor costs are also classified as fixed costs or variable costs. For example, the cost of labor to run the machinery is a variable cost, which varies with the firm’s level of production. A firm can easily increase or decrease variable labor cost by increasing or decreasing production.
The wages paid to a construction worker, a pizza delivery driver, and an assembler in an electronics company are examples of direct labor. Many employees receive fringe benefits—employers pay for payroll taxes, pension costs, and paid vacations.
What are the examples of direct labor cost?
One example of a direct labor cost is the hourly salary of a quality assurance inspector adjusted to include healthcare benefits and short-term disability. Another example could be the annual salary of a welder who works on the production line of a steel parts manufacturing company.
How do you find direct labor cost?
The labor cost per unit is obtained by multiplying the direct labor hourly rate by the time required to complete one unit of a product. For example, if the hourly rate is $16.75, and it takes 0.1 hours to manufacture one unit of a product, the direct labor cost per unit equals $1.68 ($16.75 x 0.1).
What is direct labor cost method?
Direct labor cost is defined as work expenses attributable to the actual manufacture of a good. For service industry businesses, direct labor cost refers to the cost of labor required to provide the service.
What is direct labor requirement?
Direct labor is production or services labor that is assigned to a specific product, cost center, or work order. This is not necessarily the case in a production environment, where the manufacturing area typically requires a certain amount of staffing, irrespective of the number of units produced.
Are benefits included in direct labor?
Direct labor includes the cost of regular working hours, as well as the overtime hours worked. In addition to what the company pays the employees, it must consider costs to retain employees, such as payroll tax contributions, insurance premiums, and benefits costs.
What is direct labor and what is indirect labor?
(People working in the production area, but not directly on the products, are referred to as indirect labor .) The direct labor cost includes the wages and fringe benefits of the direct labor employees and the cost of the temporary staff that are working directly on the manufacturer’s products.
How does a company calculate direct labor cost?
When calculating direct labor cost, the company must include every cost item incurred in keeping and hiring employees. In addition to what the company pays the employees, it must consider costs to retain employees, such as payroll tax contributions, insurance premiums, and benefits costs.
Which is an expanded version of direct labor?
An expanded version of direct labor, known as fully-burdened direct labor, also includes an allocation of the benefit costs earned by direct labor employees. Direct labor is considered to be a direct cost, which means that it varies directly with revenue or some other measure of activity.
When do you add direct labor to a project?
If the work performed cannot be connected to a specific employee, then the wages paid are considered indirect. When tracking the total cost incurred for a specific project, the direct labor cost must be added since it could constitute a significant portion of the project.