An employment agency pays heavy equipment operators $139 per day and general laborers $100 per day. If 39 people were hired and the total payroll was $4524, we need to find the number of heavy equipment operators and general laborers employed.

1. Problem Description

An employment agency pays heavy equipment operators $139 per day and general laborers$100 per day. If 39 people were hired and the total payroll was $4524, we need to find the number of heavy equipment operators and general laborers employed.

2. Solution Steps

Let $x$ be the number of heavy equipment operators and $y$ be the number of general laborers.

We are given two pieces of information:

The total number of people hired is

3

9. $x + y = 39$

The total payroll is $

4

5

2

4. $139x + 100y = 4524$

We have a system of two equations with two variables:

$x + y = 39$

$139x + 100y = 4524$

We can solve for $y$ in the first equation:

$y = 39 - x$

Substitute this expression for $y$ into the second equation:

$139x + 100(39 - x) = 4524$

$139x + 3900 - 100x = 4524$

$39x = 4524 - 3900$

$39x = 624$

$x = \frac{624}{39}$

$x = 16$

Now we can find $y$:

$y = 39 - x = 39 - 16 = 23$

So, there are 16 heavy equipment operators and 23 general laborers.

3. Final Answer

The number of heavy equipment operators hired was

1

6. The number of general laborers hired was 23.