LABOR 97 



department. The employee may work for more than one de- 

 partment, but the nature of his work may be such that a definite 

 amount of time is devoted to each department; thus his salary is 

 divided among the different departments for which he has 

 rendered service in proportion to the time devoted to each. The 

 vvork of some employees is of such a nature that a satisfactory 

 division of the cost of their labor is almost impossible. Con- 

 sider as an example the work of the bookkeeper, the cashier, 

 the order clerk, and the shipping clerk; they are working for 

 the different departments of the factory at the same time and 

 it is difficult to determine the amount of time devoted to each. 



In the case of the order clerk it might be possible, but perhaps 

 not practical, to divide his time by counting the orders written 

 for each department and taking for granted that it requires the 

 same unit of time for writing an order for one department as for 

 the other. 



Nonproductive labor may be divided among departments on 

 the basis of the amount of sales made by each department. 

 Consider for example that there are three departments — butter, 

 ice cream, and sweet cream. The sales of butter amount to 

 $10,000 for the month, ice cream to $1,000, and sweet cream to 

 $500. The cost of nonproductive labor for the month amounts 

 to $115, then the amount of this cost to be carried by each 

 department is in proportion to the total sales, as follows: 



Butter department = $115 X — '■ = $100. 



11,500 



, -V 1,000 



Ice cream department = $115 X = $10. 



Sweet cream department = $115 X 



11,500 

 500 



11,500 



Through a careful study of the various departments it is 

 soon learned that a direct proportion in accordance with sales 

 is not absolutely satisfactory, as it requires a greater amount 

 of nonproductive labor for one department than for the other 

 on the same volume of business. It may be found that the non- 



