employment agency

Question

An employment agency specializing in temporary construction help pays heavy equipment operators
$ 126
per day and general laborers
$ 93
per day. If
thirty-four
people were hired and the payroll was
$ 4251
how many heavy equipment operators were? employed? How many? laborers?

Answer 1

Let H= the number of heavy equipment operators and L= the number of general laborers.

 

We can form two equations - 1 for the total number of hired workers and 1 for the total cost of the workers

 

H+L=34

 

126H+93L=4251

 

The simplest route would be to solve one equation for one variable, then plug that answer into the unused equation and solve. Rinse and repeat.

 

Let's solve the top one for H

 

H=34-L

 

Now we plug this into the bottom equation and solve.

 

126(34-L)+93L=4251

 

4284-126L+93L=4251

-33L=-33

L = 1

 

Now we can plug L into one of the original equations and solve for H.

 

H=34-L

H=34-1

H=33

 

So they hired 33 Heavy Equipment Operators and 1 General Laborer