Direct Labor Costs
Categories: Accounting, Metrics
Humans. Not robots.
Simply put, direct labor refers to the cost of goods manufactured minus direct materials and manufacturing overhead. That's the very technical definition of what labor comprises on an income statement.
Scaling up to weave more baskets underwater to ship to Atlantis? Then you have to "hire up" more humans to do that weaving, unless you can find highly skilled octopi. Add more humans and you're adding more direct labor costs.