I'd also wonder where with that lifetime we're
talking about. Employee overhead in the 70's
and 80's might have been considerably lower than
present, given the increases in health care
and OSHA compliance.

My experience is much more recent, mostly from the mid-90's through the
present. The company I'm with now has a burden rate of 30%, and they
have very good benefits (after 6 mos. of employment, the employee's
health insurance cost is $30/month single, $60/month family).

This company is in the warehouse/distribution logistics industry. Prior
to here I was with a major technology and professional services
consulting firm and the cost models I built for managed service
practices used a 31% burden rate. In the Pharmaceutical sector, where I
built a lot of managed resource models for companies like J&J, Wyeth
Ayerst, and Aventis (late 90's), the burden rates ranged between 29%
and 34%.

Tillman