throughout the region. The actual nuniher employed in an indivirhial 

 yard, liowever, is governed hy the size oi the establislunent and its labor 

 requirements. As the gross dollar volume of sales of a firm increases, the 

 number of employees per $100,000 of sales declines. For example, a 

 yard in the $1,000 - $50,000 sales volume class employed an average of 

 3.5 persons, while a yard in the $1,000,000 plus class required almost 50 

 people for its labor force. However, the number of employees per 

 $100,000 of gross sales averaged seven for the smallest class yard and 

 only two for the largest yards. The number of employees per $100,000 of 

 sales declines as yard size class increases (Figure 4). Thus, economics 

 of large scale operations apply to the labor force. That is, a high ratio 

 of capital to labor can be expected. 



Size Classes 

 (thousands of dollars) 



Over 1000 



101-200 



51-100 



12 3 4 5 6 



Number of employees 



FIGURE 4. NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES PER $100,000 OF SALES 

 BY GROSS DOLLAR VOLUME SALES CLASSES. 



Average Delivery Distances 



A direct correlation exists between the size of the retail yard, ac- 

 cording to gross dollar sales volume, and the average delivery distance 

 served (Figure 5). This delivery distance is indicative of the marketing 

 area serviced by the various yard size classes, although considerable in- 

 ternal class variation may occur. Two factors have an effect on the dis- 

 tances to which deliveries are made at no extra charge to the customer. 

 These are: ( 1 ) the size of the order and (2) the volume of business done 

 with the individual customer. Larger yards serve customers who pur- 



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