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Rural Labor and Education: Farm Labor

Contents
 

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

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.

Full- and part-year hired farmworkers and agricultural service workers, 1990-2010

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.

Hired farmworkers by region and metropolitan location, 2010

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
Item Farm laborers and supervisors Farm managers All hired farm workers All U.S. wage and
 salary workers
Number 650,857 103,823 754,680 139,238,000
Percent male 83 87 84 53
Median age in years 33 44 35 42
Percent under age 25 26 9 24 12
Percent over age 44 29 48 32 44
Percent married 51 72 54 57
Percent White (race) 92 97 93 82
Percent Hispanic (ethnicity) 50 17 46 14
Percent foreign-born 48 17 44 16
Percent with U.S. citizenship 57 86 61 91
Percent with less than 9th grade 32 10 29 3
Percent with some college 16 45 20 62
Source: 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.

Unemployment rates and change, 2007-10

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.

Real wage rates, 1990-2010

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.

Legal status of hired crop farmworkers, 1991-2009

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").

Country of birth of hired crop farmworkers, 1991-2009

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.

Migration patterns of hired crop farmworkers, 1991-2009

Links to Key Data Sources

 

For more information, contact: Tom Hertz

Web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov

Updated date: July 11, 2011