One criticism of standard costs in particular caught your attention: The use of conventional standard costs may not provide appropriate incentives for improvements needed to compete effectively with world-class organizations. The speaker then discussed so-called continuous-improvement standard costs. Such standards embody systematically lower costs over time. For example, on a monthly basis, it might be appropriate to budget a 1.0% reduction in per-unit direct labor cost. Assume that the standard wage rate into the foreseeable future is $27 per hour. Assume, too, that the budgeted labor-hour standard for October of the current year is 3.20 hours and that this standard is reduced each month by 2%. During December of the current year the company produced 6,200 units of XL-10, using 23,500 direct labor hours. The actual wage rate per hour in December was $29.00. Required: 1 . Prepare a table that contains the standard labor-hour requirement per unit and standard direct labor cost per unit for the 4 months, October through January. 2. Compute the direct labor efficiency variance for December. Was this variance favorable (F) or unfavorable (U)? Prepare a table that contains the standard labor-hour requirement per unit and standard direct labor cost per unit for the 4 months, October through January. (Do not round intermediate calculations. Use rounded answers in the subsequent requirement. Round your "Standard Direct Labor Cost/Unit" answers to 2 decimal places and "Standard Labor-Hour Requirement/Unit" answers to 5 decimal places.) October . hr.per unit November . hr.per unit December . hr.per unit January . r.per unit Compute the direct labor efciency variance for December. Was this variance favorable (F) or unfavorable (U)? (Round your final answer to nearest whole dollar amount.)