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Print| E-mail|Bookmark/share| Translate| Text only |Rural Labor and Education: Farm Labor- Overview
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Hired farmworkers make up less  than 1 percent of all U.S. wage and salary workers, but they play an essential  role in U.S. agriculture.  Their wages  and salaries represent roughly 17 percent of total variable farm costs, and as  much as 40 percent of costs in labor intensive crops such as fruits,  vegetables, and nursery products. Hired farmworkers continue to be one of  the most economically disadvantaged groups in the United States. 

Hired farmworkers are employed  in both metro and nonmetro areas. The statistics presented in this chapter  refer to farmworkers nationwide rather than in nonmetro areas only, unless  otherwise indicated. 

The following information is available in this chapter:
-  Number and geographical distribution                           of hired farmworkers
-  Demographic characteristics                            including age, sex, ethnicity, and nativity
- Unemployment rates  by occupation
-  Wages
- Legal status ,  country of origin , and  migration patterns  of hired crop farmworkers
-  Links to key data sources 
Number and Geographical Distribution of Hired Farmworkers
Hired farmworkers include field crop workers, nursery workers,  livestock workers, farmworker supervisors, and hired farm managers.  Some employment estimates also include support  personnel on farms, as well as agricultural service workers, who are brought to  farms by specialized contractors rather than hired by farm operators.

According to the Farm Labor Survey (FLS) of the National  Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), hired farmworkers (including  agricultural service workers) make up a third of all those working on farms;  the other two-thirds are self-employed farm operators and their family  members.  The majority of hired  farmworkers are found on the nation's largest farms, with sales over $500,000  per year.

The average number of hired farmworkers has steadily declined over  the last century, from roughly 3.4 million to just over 1 million. Because the  U.S. labor force grew, agricultural employment as a proportion of total  employment has declined even more sharply.   According to the FLS, the annual average number of people employed as hired  farmworkers, including agricultural service workers, decreased from 1,142,000  in 1990 to 1,053,000 in 2010. Employment is highly seasonal: in January of  2010, there were 802,000 workers, while in July the figure stood at 1,245,000.  

Farm employment was less affected by the recession of 2007-2009 than  was nonfarm employment. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, farm wage  and salary employment fell by 1.5 percent between 2007 and 2009, compared to  4.7 percent for the nonfarm economy. The Farm Labor Survey found that average farm employment  in 2010 was above 2007 levels.

The Current Population Survey (CPS) uses a household survey to count  farmworkers, as opposed to a farm survey, and provides more demographic detail.  In 2010, the CPS estimated average hired  farm employment at 755,000, which is close to the FLS total excluding  agricultural service workers (767,000).

 Of these farmworkers, 62 percent work in crop agriculture, and the  remaining 38 percent work in livestock. Roughly 37 percent of all hired  farmworkers live in the Southwest (defined to include California), and 24 percent  live in the Midwest region. Two States, California and Texas, account for more  than one-third of all farmworkers.

  More farmworkers are located in metropolitan areas (59 percent)  than in nonmetro counties.  In  California, 99 percent of farmworkers are located in metro areas, and in  Washington State the figure is 95 percent.
Demographic Characteristics
The table below divides the hired farmworkers  found in the 2010 CPS into two groups: those who work as laborers or field  supervisors, and hired farm managers. About half of all laborers and  supervisors are Hispanic, while managers are mostly non-Hispanic whites.  Thirty-two percent of laborers and supervisors have less than a ninth grade  education, compared to 10 percent for farm managers and three percent for the  workforce as a whole. Laborers and supervisors are also younger—and less likely  to be married—than managers, and the average U.S. worker.

 Note that figures for these and other  characteristics differ somewhat depending on the set of workers being analyzed  and the data sources used. Livestock farmworkers, for example, have more  stability and less seasonal employment, and consequently, their traits more  resemble those of all wage and salary workers than of field crop farmworkers.  Similarly, data from the Current Population Survey reflect a more established  and native-born population than data collected from the National Agricultural  Workers Survey.

 Somewhat more than half of farm laborers and  supervisors found in the CPS are U.S. citizens, compared to 86 percent for  managers, and 91 percent for all wage and salary workers. The CPS data do not  indicate how many of those without citizenship are legally authorized to work,  although some information on this question may be found in the National  Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS), discussed below.
**Demographic    characteristics of hired farmworkers and all wage and salary workers, 2010**ItemFarm    laborers and supervisorsFarm managersAll    hired farm workersAll U.S.    wage and                              salary workersNumber650,857103,823754,680139,238,000Percent male83878453Median age in years33443542Percent under age 252692412Percent over age 4429483244Percent married51725457Percent White (race)92979382Percent Hispanic    (ethnicity)50174614Percent foreign-born48174416Percent with U.S.    citizenship57866191Percent with less than    9th grade3210293Percent with some college16452062Source: USDA-ERS analysis of data from U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population  Survey.Unemployment Rates by Occupation 
Unemployment rates for hired farmworkers, as for  many other major occupational groups, more than doubled between 2007 and 2010,  to 15.8 percent.  Only construction and  extraction occupations saw a greater increase and higher resulting levels of  unemployment in 2010. *Employment* levels for hired farmworkers, however, did not decrease over this period, as  noted above.  This apparent disparity may  be due to several factors, including greater turnover in the farm labor market  and a larger number of former farmworkers rejoining the labor force.

                        Hired farmworkers have historically experienced  above-average unemployment rates in part because of the highly seasonal nature  of agriculture; however, their low levels of education and often limited  English-language skills compared with the general population also explain much  of their labor market disadvantage.
Wages
According to the FLS, average  hourly earnings of non-supervisory farm laborers stood at $10.22 in 2010,  compared to $19.07 for private sector nonsupervisory workers outside of  agriculture.  In real terms, farm labor  wages have risen at about 0.9 percent per year since 1990, compared to 0.6  percent per year for nonfarm nonsupervisory workers. The 2010 wage for farm  laborers is comparable to the average wage for maids and housekeepers ($10.17),  but lower than the wage for landscaping and groundskeeping workers ($12.23) or  for construction laborers ($16.15), according to data from the Bureau of  Labor's Occupational Employment Statistics program.
Legal Status  of Hired Crop Farmworkers
This  section and the next two sections on national origins and migration patterns of  farmworkers rely on data from the U.S. Department of Labor's National  Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS). NAWS is the only survey that ascertains the  legal status of noncitizen farmworkers, and the only survey that identifies  hired farmworkers as migrant or settled. However, NAWS is limited to hired crop  farmworkers and excludes hired livestock farmworkers.

 The  share of hired crop farmworkers who were not legally authorized to work in the  U.S. grew from roughly 15 percent in 1989-91 to almost 55 percent in 1999-2001.  Since then it has fluctuated around 50  percent. Since 2001, the share who are  citizens has increased from about 21 percent to about 33 percent, while the  share who hold green cards or other forms of work authorization has fallen from  about 25 percent to about 19 percent.
Country of Origin
The  share of hired crop farmworkers who were born in the United States or Puerto  Rico fell from about 40 percent in 1989-91 to a low of about 18 percent in  1998-2000, while the share born in Mexico rose from 54 percent to 79 percent  over the same interval.  Since then, the  U.S. and Puerto Rico share has rebounded to about 29 percent and the Mexico  share has fallen to about 68 percent.  The share from Central America and other countries has never exceeded 6  percent.  

Since  2000, however, Hispanic workers have also been employed in increasing numbers  in the dairy industry (not covered by NAWS).   One study found that 75 percent of Hispanic dairy workers in New York  State were from Mexico, 24 percent were from Guatemala, and one percent were  from Honduras (see  "*Survey of Hispanic Dairy Workers in New York  State*").
Migration Patterns
Almost  three-quarters of hired crop farmworkers are not migrants, but are considered  settled, meaning they work at a single location within 75 miles of their  home.  This number is an increase from 42  percent in 1996-98. 

 Among  migrant workers, the largest group are "shuttlers," who work at a single farm location more than  75 miles from home, and may cross an international border to get there. They made up about 12 percent of hired crop  farmworkers in 2007-09, down from about 24 percent in 1996-98. 

 More  common in the past, the "follow the  crop" migrant farm worker, who moves from state to state working on different  crops as the seasons advance, is now a relative rarity. These workers make up just five percent of  those surveyed by the NAWS in 2007-09, down from a high of 14 percent in  1992-94. The final category in the  figure are the newcomers to farming, whose migration patterns have not yet been  established.
Links to Key Data Sources - Current                           Population Survey
-  National                           Agricultural Workers Survey
-  Farm                           Labor Survey
-  Census                           of Agriculture
- NASS  QuickStats: Generate tables from the Farm Labor Survey and Census of  Agriculture

 
For more information, contact:        Tom Hertz
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