Closed Captioning Labor Costs

Financial Considerations

  Fixed Costs

    Assumptions

    Encoder Vendors

  Variable Costs:

    Labor

    Maintenance

    Stock

  Payback Period

  Make vs. Buy

No "Add-Ons"

Great Support

Job Description

First, as always, putting the right person in the right job is key to success and profitability.

A captioner must be able to:

• Spot grammatical and spelling errors in a transcript
• Exercise common sense when positioning captions on the video image and not obscure important visual information
• Type and transcribe if necessary

The ideal captioner should also be able to condense or paraphrase portions of a transcript. 

And with 32 channels of captioning on DVDs, don't overlook the business opportunity of a hiring a multilingual captioner.

Employee Wage

In light of these qualifications, and based on our professional sources, a the"take home" wage for a journeyman captioner is about US$30,000 per year with some benefits

Assuming a 30% loading for benefits and employer contributions the weighted annual cost is $42,857.

1,440 Productive Hours Per Year

• 2 weeks of sick leave annually.
• 30 hour effective work week
• 2 weeks of vacation annually.
• 48 weeks x 30 hr/wk = 1,440 productive hours per year.

$29.76 Hourly Labor Cost

$42,857 weighted annual labor cost ÷ 1440 productive hours per year = $29.76 labor cost per captioning hour

Important Legal Notice:  Information herein is based on generalizations, estimates, and educated guesses.  Your actual experience may vary, so it is important to perform and rely on your own management analysis.