What are the pros and cons of labor intensive?

Answer 1

In general, the 'pros' of Labour-intensive activities are: 1. Flexibility (humans are more flexible and adaptable than machines), and 2. Minimization of up-front capital investment (machines cost a lot). The 'cons' of Labour-intensive activities are: 1. High per-unit production costs under high-volume production 2. Variability in output quality (machines do repetitive task almost exactly the same way every time, and humans do not) 3. Poor scalability (a machine can put out a lot of widgets, humans not so much). There is nothing about "Labour Intensive" activies that is either inherently good or inherently bad. If you live in an economically well-developed country (like the UK in 2009), then unit labor costs are high and therefore a "Labour Intensive" task is likely to be expensive. If you live in a not-so-well-developed country then unit labor costs would be low, and a "Labour Intensive" task will be inexpensive. For example, if you look at high-quality buildings in London that were built prior to the year 1900, you will see that there are many beautiful architectural details such as hand-crafted trim and moldings. Labour was cheap, so Labour-intensive jobs were plentiful. If you look at buildings after the year 2000, you will see few labour-intensive details because they are too expensive.