Operating budgets: labor hiring and production plan Mira Vista Planters provides reforestation services to large paper products companies. It must hire one planter for every 10,000 trees that it has contracted to plant each month. New employees are hired in the month needed, on the first day of the month. An employee must receive one week of evaluation and training before being profitably employed and therefore works three out of four weeks in the month hired. New employees are paid full wages for all four weeks. For every five prospective employees who enter training, three are deemed suitable for employment. When cutbacks occur, employees are laid off on the first day of the month. Every employee laid off receives severance pay equal to one week's salary, which is on average $400, regardless of how long the layoff will last. Laid-off employees inevitably drift away, and new hires must be trained. The organization will have two trained employees on January 1 and wants to have at least one trained employee at the end of each month. The company has been offered the following contracts for the upcoming year. Each monthly contract is offered on an accept or reject basis; that is, if a monthly contract is accepted, it must be completed in full. Partial completion is not acceptable. The revenue per tree planted is $0.20.

What is a labor plan for the upcoming year, indicating the following for each month:

(a) Whether you feel the company should accept or reject the proposed planting contract.

(b) How many people will be hired for training. (Recall that an employee is not available for planting during the week of training and that only three of the five employees accepted for training can be hired.)

(c) How many people will be laid off.

MIRA VISTA PLANTERS MONTHLY TREE PLANTING CONTRACTS MONTH TREES January 8,692 February 5,765 March 8,134 April 34,400 May 558,729 June 832,251 July 1,286,700 August 895,449 September 733,094 October 203,525 November 29,410 December 9,827