Manuren

Manuren, literally meaning “man-hours,” is a unit of measure used to quantify labor input in planning, budgeting, and performance assessment. A single man-hour denotes the amount of work performed by one worker in one hour. The total amount of work required for a task is expressed in man-hours, not a calendar time, so it reflects the cumulative labor effort rather than the duration of a single worker’s time.

Calculation is straightforward: multiply the number of workers by the hours they work on the task and sum across all workers. For example, five workers each working two hours on a task equals ten man-hours, while three workers working four hours equals twelve man-hours. These figures help compare tasks, estimate costs, and plan schedules.

Usage and context: man-hours are widely used in project management, construction, manufacturing, software development, and other fields to estimate labor input and to calculate labor costs when combined with wage rates. They offer a simple, portable metric for resource planning but have limitations. They do not account for differences in worker efficiency, skill levels, breaks, or task difficulty, and therefore are often supplemented by productivity factors or more detailed labor models.

Alternatives: in English, similar concepts are referred to as person-hours or labor hours. In Dutch, while manuren remains common, some contexts prefer terms that emphasize all personnel rather than the gendered origin.