Labour intensive

• Labour-Intensive Firms

  Firms that use more workers and less machinery
• Labour-intensive firm

  • NHS
• Labour-intensive firms

  • Need skilled workers that can solve problems for patients
• Advantages of labour-intensive production

  • For a firm that only produces on a small scale, it might not make financial sense to buy expensive machines to do jobs that humans could do
  • Humans can be retrained if they need to carry out a new task, whereas machines may need to be replaced
  • Human workers can solve any problems that arise during production and suggest ways to improve quality
• Disadvantages of labour-intensive production

  • It's harder to manage people than machines
  • People can be unreliable (e.g. they can get sick) and they can't work without breaks
  • Wage increases mean that the cost of production can increase over time