Friday, May 29, 2015

Use GSA's New Website to Search for Hourly Labor Rates

GSA (General Services Administration) has set up a new website called CALC (Contract Awarded Labor Category). Its really for the Government acquisition corps but it is interesting for contractors as well. One thing it provides is an easy way for contractors to check their competition.

CALC was set up to allow acquisition folks the ability to conduct market research on professional service labor categories more quickly and easily. It is also intended to take the guesswork out of cost estimations. All results shown are actual awarded hourly rates from GSA services schedules. The idea behind CALC is to provide another tool to help government acquisition make more informed decisions.

The first thing you do is type in a labor category. If you enter too broad of a term, you will be prompted with all of the labor categories that contain that particular term. After identifying the category (or sub-category), you can filter for (i) minimum education lever, (ii) years of experience, (iii) worksite (e.g. at the contractor facility or in a Government facility), and (iv) business size.

For example, if you type in the term "senior accountant", you will find 9 companies offering services ranging from $55 per hour to $134 per hour with an average of $84 per hour. The results also allow the user to download the specific GSA contract showing the rates.

One thing that CALC does not do (at least not yet) is to show labor costs for future years. Many of the GSA contracts are for five years with rates increasing each year. CALC returns only current year rates and will not return rates for any future years. You could download the contract and find future rates but that defeats the purpose of the website.

One thing that contractors on a GSA schedule should try is to enter their own contracted labor categories and see if the company shows up in the listing. If not, you should contact your GSA contracting officer and troubleshoot the problem.

Try it; CALC.gsa.gov.


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