What does a job opening / vacancy cost a company?

The Provincial Government just released information that 23 Power Linemen who work for one Canadian Utility company earned over $200,000 last year. These employees are paid a base salary of just over $33 dollars per hour, yet worked so many hours of overtime, they more then tripled their base salary! Not only are utility companies not selling any power when power lines are down, but also power is often restored at overtime rates of 2 and 3 times the regular wage.
A 2006 study by Public Safety Canada put the cost of one Ontario power outage at over one billion dollars ($1,000,000,000). Power outages in the United States are estimated to cost one hundred  billion dollars ($100,000,000,000) every year. Having enough qualified Communication and Control Technicians, Design Engineers and Electrical Engineers combined with a strong field team of Power Linemen, can drastically reduce the total cost of these power outages.
We could use the average revenue per employee to calculate the cost of vacancies, but this does not take into account how critical certain employees are to supplying customer’s power consumption needs.  For example, Second Class Power Engineers that run power generating plants are needed for the safe and efficient operation of power plants. In addition, they are required by law to be on-site at all times for large plants. If one of these employees is off sick, plants generating thousands of dollars of power per hour could be shut down until another certified Power Engineer can be brought in.
In mining, Heavy Duty Mechanics keep haul trucks, loaders, stationary engines and other heavy equipment running efficiently. A huge 700 series off-highway Caterpillar truck costs a company over $1,500,000 dollars new so keeping equipment maintained and running efficiently rests with the mechanics and maintenance planners. If these vehicles brake down or if they need extensive repairs it will cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.   Gold and silver don’t provide cash flow laying in the bottom of an open pit mine, these trucks must be up and running at all times to earn the company money.
Agricultural, road building, and construction equipment breakdowns cost thousands of dollars in production and lost revenue. Equipment suppliers lose millions in lost sales to competitors if they do not have enough qualified service technicians to cater to their clients.
Vacancies affect team members, management, customers, employees in various departments, and everyone in the organization, including human resource professionals. Beyond the immediate impacts on revenue there are stress and workload burdens on the individual since they due to not having the necessary team members to fill vacant positions.
During summer months these problems get worse as vacancies cannot be filled when human Resource managers, hiring managers and key decision makers take vacations. Those left working are barely able to keep up, much less take on the extra task of filling vacancies. Companies that fill vacancies quickly through effective hiring strategies have less of these direct and indirect cost, resulting in lower turnover in September when other companies start to play catch-up!