How to Calculate a Burdened Labor Rate for Heavy Civil Bids A burdened labor rate is what a worker actually costs you for every productive hour on the job: base wage plus payroll taxes, workers' compensation, benefits, and paid time that is not spent working, divided by the hours that really produce work. For the average construction employer, federal data show that burden adds about 44 cents to every dollar of wages. That second number is the one that catches estimators off