TL;DR
- Direct labour touches the product; indirect labour keeps the shop running.
- Use the loaded rate — gross wage plus employer contributions, absence and paid breaks.
- Indirect labour belongs in overhead, allocated per productive hour.
Costing with the gross hourly wage understates real labour cost by 25–45%, which is exactly the margin most shops believe they have.
Loaded = (Gross_annual × (1 + Employer_rate)) / Productive_hours_per_year
- Productive hours exclude holiday, sickness, training and non-productive time
Operator at €34,000 gross
- Employer contributions 21%
- €41,140
- Productive hours per year
- 1,540
- Loaded rate
- €26.71 / h — not the €17.70 implied by the gross wage
- Direct: printing, pressing, pretreatment, folding, packing tied to a job.
- Indirect: maintenance, scheduling, quality management, cleaning, administration.
Interactive example
Loaded labour rate per productive hour
- Loaded rate
- € 26,71 / h
- Labour per garment
- € 0,245
- Annual loaded cost
- € 41.140
Same calculation kernel as the full calculators. For a decision-grade result, open the matching calculator.
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