How Many Shirts Should You Order Per Crew Member? (Vegas GC Rule of Thumb)

We've been outfitting Vegas construction crews today and there's one question we get more than any other: how many shirts do we actually need per person? The honest answer is that most contractors order too few of the things crews wear daily, too many of the things they don't, and end up with a closet full of dead inventory plus a constant scramble for the right sizes.

Here's the formula we recommend after watching plenty of Vegas crews wear and trash gear in 110° conditions.

1. The 5-3-1 Starting Formula

For a working field crew member in Las Vegas, the baseline kit per employee is:

• 5 daily-wear tees or polos — one per workday with one in the wash
• 3 secondary garments — long-sleeves, hi-vis layers, hoodies
• 1 outerwear piece — branded jacket, vest, or pullover

That's 9 pieces total. It assumes the crew member does laundry once a week, has one hot-swap shirt for emergencies, and rotates through the kit so individual pieces last 6–12 months.

2. By Role: Field, Foreman, Office

Field crew (laborers, journeymen, apprentices)

Standard 5-3-1 kit. Cotton or poly-blend tees, hi-vis layers, branded hoodies. The shirts will be filthy by Friday — they're consumables, not heirlooms. Spec for durability and washability over premium feel.

Foreman / Superintendent

Bump to 5 polos + 3 button-downs + 1 jacket. Foremen are visible to clients, GCs, and inspectors. They need a slightly elevated kit — embroidered polos beat printed tees here. Differentiate visually from the field crew (different color, embroidery vs print) so authority is obvious from across the lot.

Office / Project Manager

3 polos + 2 button-downs + 1 zip-up. Office staff don't burn through shirts the way field crews do. Quarterly orders make sense here, not the annual replacement cycle.

3. The Vegas Summer Adjustment

Standard apparel formulas come from people working in Ohio. Vegas changes the math. From May through September, your crew member is sweating through gear in 4 hours instead of 8. Some shops do mid-day shirt swaps. That doubles your daily-wear rotation.

The summer-adjusted kit:

• 7 daily-wear tees instead of 5 (covers mid-day swaps + Monday hand-out delays)
• 2 long-sleeve UPF for sun protection — counterintuitive but actually keeps crews cooler than direct sun on bare arms
• Drop the heavyweight hoodie to a single piece — it sits in the truck May through September anyway

Switch fabric choice in summer too. Polyester or poly-cotton blends wick instead of trapping. Pure cotton becomes wet-and-stays-wet quickly.

4. Building Turnover Into the Order

Construction turnover in Vegas runs around 25% annually for field crew. If you order for the headcount you have today, you're going to be short by Q2 and bleeding on dead inventory by Q4.

Two approaches work:

Option A: Order +20%, accept some waste

For a 30-person crew, order kits for 36. The extras absorb new hires for 4–6 months. You'll write off some leftover gear when you rebrand or change vendors, but the cushion is worth it for crews ordering once a year.

Option B: Stand up a company store and order on demand

Above 25 employees, this almost always wins. Each new hire gets a kit on rush, sized to them, no closet inventory, no waste. We wrote a full breakdown in Bulk Ordering vs Company Store: The Real Math for Contractors — short version, the math flips around 25–30 employees.

5. The Actual Math for a 30-Person Crew

For a typical Vegas GC running 25 field, 4 foremen, 1 office:

Field (25 × 9 pieces + 20% buffer): 270 pieces total — 175 daily-wear tees, 75 secondary, 30 outerwear

Foreman (4 × 9 pieces): 36 pieces — 20 polos, 12 button-downs, 4 jackets

Office (1 × 6 pieces): 6 pieces — 3 polos, 2 button-downs, 1 zip-up

For a more detailed breakdown by trade — electrical, roofing, plumbing — see our industries pages. Each trade has a standard kit specific to the work and the gear we recommend by role.

The Short Version

Field crew: 5 daily + 3 secondary + 1 outer = 9 pieces. Foremen: bump to embroidered polos with a jacket. Add 20% for turnover, or skip the buffer entirely with a company store. Adjust up by 30% in summer for sweat-through and mid-day swaps.

Order too few and you bleed on emergency reorders all year. Order right once and you stop thinking about apparel until next April.