As I work with our contractor clients from around the country either setting up their labor costs in our 360 Difference Estimating program or helping them out with our Capacity Based Markup Excel Worksheet I always stress they have to USE REAL FIGURES FOR THIER AREAS because of the tremendous regional differences in labor costs throughout the county and this infographic illustrates those differences.

You can’t just go in an online forum and ask a question like “Hey I just landed an estimate for a kitchen installation what do you people charge for installing cabinets?” That’s entirely the WRONG QUESTION to ask. If anything, and I still question the validity of the data you’ll get for answers, the question should be “How do you people figure out how many labor hours for cabinet installation?” to which you then take that labor hour data and multiply it by your Loaded Labor Rate (which you have perhaps built using our Capacity Based Markup Excel Worksheet) to come up with your number.

J. Jerrald Hayes

Primus Inter Pares at Paradigm Projects, Ltd.

I am an architectural woodworker and general contractor turned IT, Business and Project Management consultant, software developer wannabe senior division triathlete and ski racer, Yankee fan and founder of ParadigmProjects.com, 360 Difference Mac4Construction.com,iOS4Construction.com and now TheBuildingAndRemodelingWiki.com too.