# If 55% of the workers in a factory is 550, how many workers are there in total?

#### Tij

##### New member
If 55% of the workers in a factory is 550, how many workers are there in total?

Thank you

#### MarkFL

##### Super Moderator
Staff member
Hello, and welcome to FMH!

Let's let W be the number of workers. Now the statement:

"55% of the workers in a factory is 550 "

can be written as an equation as follows:

$$\displaystyle 0.55W=550$$

Can you proceed?

#### MarkFL

##### Super Moderator
Staff member
Dividing both sides by $$0.55$$, we obtain:

$$\displaystyle W=\frac{550}{0.55}=\frac{55000}{55}=1000$$

This should make sense as we should be able to see that 550 is 55% of 1000.

#### Otis

##### Senior Member
Hello. Did you try anything? I learned the proportion method, in arithmetic class. (I don't know what class you're taking.)

$$\displaystyle \dfrac{\text{Part}}{\text{Whole}} = \dfrac{\text{Percent}}{100}$$

Your exercise gave you the part and percent. You need to find the whole. The whole refers to the whole group of factory workers. Part of that whole is a smaller group (550 workers).

The part compares to the whole the same way the percent compares to 100. Write the proportion:

$$\displaystyle \dfrac{550}{\text{Whole}} = \dfrac{55}{100}$$

To find the missing number, we can use the pattern that says, "Multiply on the diagonal and divide by the number not used."

550 × 100 ÷ 55 = ?