Get a Grip on Your D.C.

Benchmarking ShareGroups, a proprietary program in which participants share benchmarking data, reveals that labor rates were typically around $7 an hour five years ago. Today, they’ve reached $12 to $13 an hour for many direct marketing businesses, plus a 20 percent benefit rate. But overall productivity in distribution centers has remained flat over a five- to 10-year period. If you factor in increasing labor rates, you can conclude that productivity has actually declined.