Labor category
Also called: LCAT, labor cat, labor category description, job category
A labor category is a defined job title in a contract or schedule, with minimum education and experience and a billing rate, under which hours are proposed and invoiced on services contracts.
Labor categories appear in GSA schedule price lists, IDIQ and GWAC contracts, and the pricing sections of most services solicitations. The government's statement of work or the vehicle sets the category names and qualifications; your proposal maps your people to them and prices an hourly rate per category per year. On T&M and labor-hour contracts, FAR 52.232-7 makes the qualifications a billing condition, and on Service Contract Act work the categories map to Department of Labor occupations in the wage determination.
What to check: that each person you propose meets the category's minimum education and years (substitution rules are usually stated), that the hours by category in the price volume match the technical volume's staffing, and that the rate covers the wage, fringe, indirect costs and fee for that category.
What it is not: a job title your firm picks. The contract's category definitions govern, and billing a junior person at a senior category is a compliance failure, not a pricing strategy.
See also: Time-and-materials (T&M) contract, Wrap rate, Price volume, Service Contract Act (SCA)
Questions that use this term
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The contracting officer will incorporate the correct wage determination into the solicitation, and if it is missing, you should request it from them...