Material takeoffs get most of the attention, but labor is often the larger and more variable cost on a framing bid — and it doesn't come from a simple formula the way stud counts do.
Productivity rates
The standard approach is a productivity rate: a crew's typical output per hour or per day for a given task (linear feet of wall framed per hour, square feet of floor sheathed per day, etc.), calibrated against your own crew's actual historical performance rather than a generic industry average, since real productivity varies significantly by crew experience, job complexity, and even weather.
Crew size is non-linear
Crew size matters non-linearly. Doubling a crew doesn't automatically halve the time — coordination overhead, material staging bottlenecks, and task dependencies (you can't sheathe a wall that isn't framed yet) all limit how much parallel work actually speeds things up.
Complexity multipliers
Complexity multipliers matter more than most labor estimates account for: a plan with lots of jogs, angled walls, and custom openings takes meaningfully longer per linear foot than a simple rectangular floor plan, even though the lumber takeoff might show a similar total board count.
Use your own data
The most reliable labor estimates come from tracking your own crew's actual hours against completed jobs over time and building your productivity rates from that — a generic industry rate is a reasonable starting point, but your own historical data is always more accurate for your specific crew and market.