Abstract Many writers on management accounting argue that labor is no longer a significant cost and that overhead is a growing and significant cost in manufacturing operations. This paper reports the results of an examination of material cost and labor cost data for a variety of manufacturing industries for the years 1899 through 1987. This research suggests that, while labor as a percentage of sales reached a peak for many industries around 1950 and indeed declined subsequently to the point of becoming relatively insignificant for some industries, as late as 1987 labor cost represents a significant portion of total manufacturing cost for other industries. The argument that overhead is a growing portion of manufacturing cost is tested by examining the relation over time of the ratio of total wages and salaries to production wages. The trend indicates that for some industries overhead costs are rising while for others they remain relatively constant. In summary, it appears that manufacturing cost structures have been changing slowly over time, but sufficient variation across industries exists in the extent and nature of the changes to suggest that no single approach to structuring cost accounting systems is likely to be optimal for all industrial organizations or sectors.
Boer et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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