Worker construction costs

[Beorn]

I think that when I do constructions, I am getting snarled up with worker construction costs. (At least I cannot see any other reason why my constructions are not completing in the number of turns initially indicated.) It is easy to see whether I have the necessary metal, industrial points, machines, etc. But the meaning of worker construction costs is unclear to me, and it is not a resource listed in that panel to the left.

I can click the hex of the the main city for the zone, and I see a number for workers and a number for populace. But I am doubtful that the number for workers is what I need to look at -- that appears to be the number already employed. And the icon does not match the worker construction costs icon. Logically, it's the rest of the populace that is eligible to be workers for my project, but that can't be right because that would make the requirement for worker construction costs so easy as to be trivial.

So where do I go to see whether I have enough of this resource?

[Beorn]

I don't know the answer to my question above, but I suspect I have mis-identified the main problem.

I went ahead and tried to construct a university, since I had all the other requirements. After a turn, I found this:

http://www.bemont.sportsrealm.net/1.png

Woa, how can that be? Note I have lots of metal and industrial points, so those should not be problems. But then I look at the bottlenecks overlay, and I see a black line through this area.

But wait, how can that be? I just constructed a new public truck station in this exact location.

But when I look at the truck station, I see it needed 10 fuel and only got 2. So THAT is the problem... But it feels like an unsolvable problem. If you cannot run trucks because you have no fuel, and you have no fuel because you cannot run trucks... Obviously, this is not happening to other people, so I must be missing something here.

[Red_Dwarf]

Im also interested in this answer.

[springel]

So you need to buy fuel?

But I have also have problems finding the availability of workers, and reports on how they are utilized.

[Beorn]

ORIGINAL: springel

So you need to buy fuel?

But I have also have problems finding the availability of workers, and reports on how they are utilized.

So you need to buy fuel?

But I have over 400 fuel. It seems to be an issue of WHERE the fuel is, and getting it the work site. A problem I thought I had solved by building a truck station there.

So I really have two separate areas that I hope someone can clarify. 1) The worker construction costs and 2) the distribution of materials when a truck station isn't sufficient.

[Kamelpov]

The black line say all not enough truck in this black portion. Usually you need a better road or use trafic sign the amount of truck to increase to acceptable lvl And oil bought start at SHQ so you need to not have a black line at all first.
+ Your screen show 2 in oil so you got only 200 truck instead of 1000. The location of the truck station need to start at 100 truck pts if possible to get the initial oil from shq at least as you did say you put that station on the black part when it should be on the green part SHQ side near the black part.

[Beorn]

The location of the truck station need to start at 100 truck pts if possible to get the initial oil from shq at least as you did say you put that station on the black part when it should be on the green part SHQ side near the black part.

Thank you, this is helpful. But don't truck points change from turn to turn, such that I am trying to hit a moving target, having an additional truck station on the green part? Or is this just an initial thing, and once the new truck station is established, it is good to go? (If that is the case, I could use traffic signs for a turn to temporarily route points in the needed direction.)

[Beorn]

I'd still like to know about worker construction costs, though. When starting construction, the availability of the other inputs is easy to check, but I don't know where to look for this.

[Resan]

The cost is shown in the building interface same as the rest of the costs.
As for how much you have to draw on, not sure.

As for your example you are probably limited by IP or metal, due to not enough making it to the city, since your logistical network can't send it from the SHQ.
Probably to far away from the SHQ, so enclosed roads might help

[Jdane]

You can only hope your governor will be able to hire the full complement of workers from the zone's population when the construction starts.
If your workers are happy, at least paid as well as they would in the public sector, and there's population to recruit from, it should be okay. (I might be missing other factors here.)
But if your workers are miserable or poorly paid, people from the general population won't be willing to sign up, and then you'll probably have a bottleneck on construction.

Same goes with manning assets with workers so that they can produce at full efficiency.
Good news is workers hired for the construction project will already be there to go and work in the newly built asset. The governor will only need to hire more if necessary. Depending of the zone policy, if there are workers left without a job, they'll be fired and go back to the population (default setting) or be kept on the payroll if you specified that's what you'd rather want.

[Beorn]

ORIGINAL: Jdane

You can only hope your governor will be able to hire the full complement of workers from the zone's population when the construction starts.
If your workers are happy, at least paid as well as they would in the public sector, and there's population to recruit from, it should be okay. (I might be missing other factors here.)
But if your workers are miserable or poorly paid, people from the general population won't be willing to sign up, and then you'll probably have a bottleneck on construction.

Same goes with manning assets with workers so that they can produce at full efficiency.
Good news is workers hired for the construction project will already be there to go and work in the newly built asset. The governor will only need to hire more if necessary. Depending of the zone policy, if there are workers left without a job, they'll be fired and go back to the population (default setting) or be kept on the payroll if you specified that's what you'd rather want.

Thanks. So it really goes back to the policies I set for the zone. Which a new player has trouble with because the wage setting is kind of, compared to what. There's no setting for "pay the going rate" or "pay a 10% premium over the going rate." The same screen asks for number of workers to be hired, etc. and the again the numbers on the right need to be pulled out of thin air, because what you really mean is "hire what is needed for the current jobs at hand" as opposed to a target total number... Maybe it is set up that way to force you to pay the points to make the adjustment?

But in any case, your answer is very helpful. Thank you!

[Jdane]

Yes, it is frustrating at first because you only start knowing what's best with experience.

From what I've seen, you can leave the Ideal number of workers at 0 and that won't prevent the governor to try and hire workers when needed. I think it has mainly a niche use, such as if you've noticed recruitment is slow, you might want to plan it ahead to avoid a bottleneck. Look at your current amount of workers, look at the asset you intend to be building soonish and how much workers it needs, add up the numbers and set the slider accordingly. This way, when you eventually start construction, you're guaranteed to have the workers resource in stock.

As for the going rate, you can know it by looking on the bottom left info panel when you have the Zone tab opened and clicked on the Population number box. There are stats on the private sector economy, and among them the median wage.

I agree your proposal to set the policy as x% above the going rate would be much convenient, though also very much be fire and forget. I still lack experience to tell how quick the median salary can vary and thus how often you'd need to make sure to pay your workers better. But the rule of thumb is if they're not so happy and yet have food to eat, they probably could use a raise. If you can afford it.

Also there's at least one Stratagem to boost worker happiness (albeit at the expense of the general population one, but if your goal is to attract workers to the public sector, it's probably not that much of a drawback).

To try and sum it up there seem to be several ways to manage this problem.