Question

an employment agency specializing in temporary construction help pays heavy equipment operators $129 per day and general laborers $100 per day. If thirty-two people were hired and the payroll was $3751, how many heavy equipment operators were employed? How many laborers?

Answer 1

To solve this problem you must apply the proccedure shown below:

1. Let's call
`x` to the number of equipment operators and
`y` to the numbers of laborers.

2. Based on the information given in the problem above, you can make a system of equation, as following:

`\left \{ {{129x+100y=3751} \atop {x+y=32}} \right.`

3. By applying the method of substitution, you can solve for
`x` from the second equation and substitute it into the first equation to solve for
`y`, as following:

`x=32-y\\ 129(32-y)+100y=3751\\ y=(-377)/(-29) \\ y=13`

4. Now, substitute the value of
`y` into the second equation to calculate
`x`:

`x=32-13\\ x=19`

The answer is: 19 equipment operators and 13 laborers.