What Does It Cost to Run Santa's Workshop?

Holidays can be expensive when you're only distributing a few gifts, not a few billion. Learn what Santa's yearly workshop budget must be in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/holidays-christmas/santa-claus-workshop-budget-will-blow-mind.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum Here, the holiday season can
be magical, joyous, festive, and expensive, very very expensive. And
if you think we mere mortals have a hard time
keeping up with the food, shopping, gift giving and otherwise

(00:24):
high priced merriment, imagine how Santa Claus feels. Well. A
London based company by the name of True Luxury Travel
did just that, putting themselves in the shoes of Jolly
ol st Nick and plotting out his Christmas budget. Of course,
many holidays are celebrated around this time of year, and
consumers who don't even have reindeer tend to spend a lot.

(00:47):
According to a Gallop report from earlier in December, of
Americans planned to spend an average of eight hundred and
sixty seven dollars on gifts this year. This number has
held pretty steady since, but it hardly accounts for the
time and effort necessary to produce, package, and ship all
those gifts all over the world. While some may believe

(01:09):
that all that magic happens through factories and shipping agencies,
others know that the real magic happens in the North
Pole here's what Santa could be spending to fulfill all
those dreams. Okay, there are approximately two billion children in
the world, give or take a few hundred million, and
because a fair number of non Christians are known to

(01:30):
celebrate Christmas, that means that approximately of the world's population
commemorates that day. That adds up to about nine million
kids getting gifts on Christmas, and not just one toy each,
mind you. Let's set the number of gifts that kids
receive that day at a nice, even and arbitrary ten.

(01:50):
That means Santa's workshop is churning out approximately nine billion toys, books,
and ugly sweaters. Some are more costly to make than others.
But if you assume even a very low two and
a half euros per gift, that's twenty two point five
billion euros on the whole lot, which is about twenty
three point nine billion U S dollars as of this recording.

(02:13):
And Santa is good, but he's not a one man show.
A true luxury travel estimated that he'd need around one
thirty two thousand elves to do all the menial labor
in the workshop. And now, of course, we do not
have numbers about the wage rates at the North Pole.
But let's take, for example, the federal minimum wage here
in the United States, which is seven dollars and twenty

(02:35):
five cents an hour. We'd hope that Santa is giving
his elves a competitive pay rate and robust benefits package.
But even at that bare minimum, if all those elves
are working forty hours a week, year round to ensure
those gifts go out on Christmas Eve, that's fifteen thousand
and eighty dollars per year per elf. For an army
of elves, that's about one point nine billion a year.

(02:57):
And again with hope, it's a lot higher. Estimates for
the cost of employing a factory worker for a year
in North Pole adjacent Finland ranged around forty one thousand
euros or over forty three thousand U S dollars including benefits,
so it could be completely reasonable to assume three times
our initial estimate, or around six billion US dollars. And

(03:20):
then you have to keep the workshops lights on and
the heat. The North Pole chill is no joke, and
the workshop must be massive and estimated one point two
million square feet or about a hundred and eleven thousand
square meters and so assuming US prices, the clauses could
be shelling out another one point six billion on electricity
and two point two million on natural gas, so another

(03:43):
one point eight billion total. And let's not forget those reindeer.
The aforementioned travel company relied on the estimated cost of
owning a horse to calculate the cost of caring for reindeer.
The average cost of maintaining a horse in the US
is three thousand, nine hund dollars a year, and Santa
has at least nine reindeer, including Rudolph. Also, if we

(04:05):
assume santa sleigh is as expensive to maintain as a
luxury car, then he's shelling out at least one thousand,
eight hundred dollars a year to keep things running smoothly
all told, including a range of other factors including snacks
for the staff, but workshop overhead and suit upkeep. True
Luxury Travel estimated Santa's yearly budget at forty seven billion

(04:27):
US dollars a year. They're not a sponsored, by the way,
they just wrote a delightful blog post. Today's episode is
based on the article Santa Claus's workshop budget will blow
your mind on how Stuff Works dot com, written by
Michelle Konstantinovsky. Brain Stuff it's production of I heart Radio
in partnership with how stuff Work dot Com, and it's

(04:49):
produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.