There are four main productivity losses when assessing labour that either affect the time it will take to carry out a task or directly affect the cost of labour.

1. MISTAKES
There will always be times when fixtures, pipes and fittings will need to be replaced for a number of reasons such as a supervising engineer not being happy with a particular installation, an employee may make a genuine mistake by installing the wrong size pipe, or using the wrong joining compound, or a fixture may be damaged. There are also times when the drill, power cord or pipe brackets are left in the work shed and time is lost to make a special trip to retrieve them. In such cases there must be an allowance made to cover such lost time, when such productivity losses will affect the labour times and must be compensated. A small percentage of additional labour is added to each individual task for the pipes, fittings and fixtures.

2. COFFEE BREAKS
Most industrial awards require that an employee have morning and afternoon breaks (smokos) as well as the need for hygiene breaks. These breaks do not form part of the labour times; rather they are included in the actual cost of labour. Where a tradesperson has ten minute break each morning and afternoon a total of twenty minutes per day is lost from productive work, however there will also be the time lost for stopping and starting work, as well as other non productive breaks during the day. Research shows one hour per day will be lost for these purposes. Such productivity losses directly affect the cost of labour and are taken into account in the labour rate calculation for the actual hours worked per week.
Note: Lunch breaks are not included in the calculation as they do not form part of the tradesperson's wage and therefore there is no outlay to recoup.

3. SITE LOCATION
The location of the site is of course very important, if our labour times are based on townhouse construction, home units, residential or small commercial buildings, the labour times are considered as typical due to limited interruptions. On the other hand if the site is in the centre of a city where young tradespeople could be distracted from their work, or heavy traffic is experienced, additional labour costs are incurred, consideration is given to this loss in the actual productive hours worked.

4. BENEFITS
Benefits are where the employee has paid time off. The customer is charged on a pro-rata basis. Examples of these benefits are:

1. Annual holidays
2. Public holidays
3. Sick leave
4. Wet weather time
5. Lost time between major jobs