Labour Cost Calculator · Owner, 4-person electrical contracting business
He was pricing every job on a wage he didn’t actually pay.
The Lab found the real number: $64 an hour, not $35.
True cost per hour, once everything was counted
$64
Every quote assumed his tradies cost him $35 an hour - the number on their payslip. The Labour Cost Calculator walked him through super, WorkCover and the days nobody bills (rain, training, sick leave) and rolled them into one true hourly figure. $64, not $35. A $29 gap, on every billable hour, on every worker, on every job he’d quoted that year.
He’d been in business six years and had never once separated "what I pay someone" from "what an hour of their time actually costs the business." The gap wasn’t hiding in one big expense - it was spread thin across super contributions, WorkCover premiums, and the days that get billed as zero but still show up on the wage bill (rain days, training, sick leave). None of it was dishonest bookkeeping, it was just never added up in one place before. Once the Lab put the true number in front of him, the next question became obvious: was his pricing built to survive it?
See what Labour Cost Calculator would find in your own numbers.
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