Staffing calculators · Labor burden
Labor Burden Calculator
for staffing agencies
Labor burden is what an employer pays on top of wages: payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, workers' comp and other insurance. For a staffing agency, burden is the floor under every bill rate. This labor burden calculator, sometimes called a payroll burden calculator or employee burden calculator, works it out per hour for a real assignment length, because unemployment taxes stop at a wage cap and that makes short assignments cost more per hour than long ones. It then gives the lowest bill rate that still hits your target margin.
Assignment
Your rates
Starting values are placeholders. Use your own state unemployment rate and wage base from your state notice, and your workers' comp rate for this class code from your policy.
Per hour
Labor burden for this assignment
$0.00
| Cost | Assignment | Per hour |
|---|
Lowest bill rate for your margin
$0.00
Markup on pay that requires
0%
Same job, different assignment lengths
Burden per hour as a share of pay. Unemployment taxes are paid on the first dollars of wages, so a short assignment carries them over fewer hours.
Estimate only. Assumes this Crew Member has no other wages with your agency earlier in the calendar year, and the full federal unemployment credit. Not tax or accounting advice.
How do you calculate labor burden?
Add up every employer cost tied to wages for a period, then divide by the hours worked to get burden per hour, or by wages to get the burden rate as a percentage. For a staffing agency the main pieces are federal payroll taxes, federal and state unemployment, workers' comp and liability insurance, plus any benefits the agency pays.
| Cost | How it is charged | What changes it |
|---|---|---|
| Social Security | 6.2% of wages up to $184,500 per employee in 2026 | Almost never capped for hourly Crew Members |
| Medicare | 1.45% of all wages | No cap for the employer share |
| Federal unemployment (FUTA) | 6.0% of the first $7,000, usually 0.6% after the state credit | Higher in credit-reduction states |
| State unemployment (SUTA) | Your assigned rate on the state's wage base | Your claims history and the state |
| Workers' comp | A rate per $100 of payroll for each class code | The client's work, the state, your experience mod |
| Liability and benefits | Policy rates and plan costs | Your carrier, ACA status, paid leave laws |
Why is burden higher on short assignments?
Because federal and state unemployment taxes are charged only on the first part of each employee's wages for the year, an agency pays most of them in the first weeks of work. On a long assignment that cost spreads over many hours. On a short one it does not, and on a new Crew Member every few weeks it repeats. Many burden calculators use one flat percentage, which looks fine on paper and quietly overstates margin on short, high-turnover work.
Bottom line: price short assignments and high-turnover accounts on the burden they actually carry, not on a yearly average.
How does burden set the bill rate?
The lowest workable bill rate is pay plus burden, divided by one minus your target gross margin. At a $20.00 pay rate with $3.00 of burden and a 20% target margin, the bill rate has to be at least $28.75, a 43.8% markup on pay. Anything lower eats into the margin that pays for recruiters, coordinators and the office. For the full pay, markup and margin picture, see markup, burden rate and workers' comp class codes.
How NextCrew handles it
NextCrew sets pay and bill rates by client, position and job, builds invoices from approved timesheets and ranks clients by revenue and margin on the dashboard, so an account priced below its real burden shows up early. Payroll taxes and workers' comp premiums are calculated by your payroll provider and carrier; NextCrew sends them clean, approved hours through the payroll export. See staffing invoicing and reporting.
Frequently asked questions
Sources: Social Security Administration, 2026 contribution and benefit base of $184,500 (announced October 2025); IRS Publication 15 (Circular E) and Topic 759, FICA and FUTA rates and the $7,000 FUTA wage base (accessed October 2026).
See margin by client before the month closes
Rates by client and position, invoices from approved hours, and a dashboard that ranks clients by margin.