Rising Labor Costs at Print Shops Trigger Run on Automated Postpress Equipment
Speaking at the BindRite 2014 annual meeting, National Print Owners Association (NPOA) president John Stewart made a compelling case for more automation in post print processes such as binding, lamination and paper handling, as well as expanded services such as wide format graphics and mailing services. In a tour de force of quick printing industry financial trends, Stewart presented statistics derived from NPOA's just released 2014-2015 Financial Benchmarking Study. The study includes such fundamentals as annual sales, cost of goods and payroll.
Notable among the trends was Stewart's conclusion that labor costs are rising significantly faster than other shop expenditures. A key chart showed labor expenditures as a percentage of all costs climbing from 24.3 percent in 1983 to 32.5 percent in 2011.
That leap establishes labor costs as the single greatest category of business expense, overtaking overhead as the greatest drag on profits. In fact, with overhead and cost of sales remaining relatively stable over the 30-year period, the uptick in labor costs comes almost directly out of owner's compensation. According to Stewart, this data holds true across all regions of the country, and does not vary significantly from franchise to non-franchise operations.
Labor Costs Driving Post Print Automation
- Companies:
- Formax
- People:
- John Stewart