<h1>Construction Labor</h1>

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<h2><strong>Introduction</strong></h2>
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<p>In the present fast-paced highly industrialized age, many of the products in the market are increasingly being mass-produced in factories by machines. However, a building still remains as one of the few handcrafted products put together piece by piece by skilled and unskilled workers.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>The construction industry, to which these workers belong, is one of the most non-automated or labor-intensive industries in the world. The labor cost element of a building construction project may vary from 30 to 50%, and sometimes can be as high as 60% of the total construction cost. Therefore, the labour component is considered a very important area in a construction project.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>A building is a very complex product, made up of many different systems, such as the structural system, exterior enclosure system, interior finishes, plumbing, and HVAC system, etc. These systems can be separated into many other subsystems and sub-sub systems. For example, beam concreting can be divided into the formwork, reinforcements, and concreting. Again, reinforcement can be sub-sub divided into cutting, bending, placing in place, etc.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>A building construction project can be divided into many work packages. A work package can then be allocated to and accomplished by an individual worker or a crew. A crew can be described as a group of workers. These workers may be from the same trade or may be from a combination of many different trades. Different tasks involved in the construction of a building need many types of craftsmen from various trades. </p>
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<h2><strong><em>Labor’s production rates or Productivity</em></strong></h2>
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<p>A production rate is defined as the number of units of work completed by a worker in a definite time period. Production rates may specify in the form of time in man-hours or man-days necessary to produce a specified number of units of work.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>The time that a labor will consume in performing a unit of work varies between labors, between projects, with climatic conditions, job supervision, complexities of the operation, and due to many other factors. For example, it may require more time for erecting a shutter for stairs than for a beam.</p>
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<p>Sometimes, the production rate is substituted by the term productivity. Productivity is the ratio between input and the respective output.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>In construction, the labour input can be expressed as the work hours of a worker or a crew. For example, it may be 4 hours of bricklaying gang.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>The output can be stated as the amount of work completed. For instance, it may be expressed as laying 500 bricks or may be expressed in square meters.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>Accordingly, construction productivity is defined as the quantity of work produced in a particular time period by a worker or a specific crew. In other words, it is the quantity of construction output units produced in a given amount of time or a unit time.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>The formula for productivity is presented as follows;&nbsp;</p>
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<p><strong><em>Construction productivity </em></strong><strong><em></em></strong><strong><em>= </em></strong><strong><em></em></strong><strong><em>quantity of work produced / time duration</em></strong></p>
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<p><strong><em>Example</em></strong><em> - </em>If a bricklaying crew can lay 560 bricks in 8 hours, then, the related construction productivity is 560 bricks divided by 8 hours, which are 70 bricks per bricklaying crew per hour.&nbsp;</p>
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<p><em>With compared to most of the other items associated with monetary factors, labour productivity is highly variable. It can fluctuate wildly. For accurate estimation, an estimator or a quantity surveyor must have good historical records of the output of his workers, require a lot of experience, in addition to theoretical knowledge.&nbsp;</em></p>
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<p><strong><em>Productivity sources</em></strong></p>
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<p>Productivity rates can also be determined from already published sources from different institutions, such as Construction Cost Data.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>Sample norms of some common work items are given below;</p>
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