Survey: Labor Costs Higher for Smaller Manufacturers

Member companies who took part in the 2018 Business Profile & Financial Performance Survey received customized data of how their business compared to businesses of similar size on a series of key performance data.

Among data was how much a company spends on direct labor as a percentage of its net sales, which is shown here. As the chart illustrates, companies that net more than $25 million a year in farm equipment sales spend 10 percentage points less on direct labor than companies that net less than $5 million a year.

As Industry Insights prepares to administer the 2019 survey in April, this newsletter will offer glimpses of the data that will be available to participants.