The number of workers paid by farmers and agricultural services totaled 48,000 for the week of July 11 through 17. Farmers hired 45,000 workers compared with 54,000 in April 1999 and 45,000 in July 1998. Agricultural services hired 3,000 compared with 9,000 last quarter and 5,000 a year ago. July is traditionally a slow month for agricultural work in Florida. The survey showed the main activities to be nursery work, land preparation for fall crop vegetable planting and caring for citrus groves.
    The July 1999 all hired worker wage rate averaged $8.35 per hour, 15 cents or two percent above the $8.20 per hour paid last quarter, and 23 cents or three percent higher than the $8.12 per hour paid last year. Farmers paid an average of $8.31 per hour, 13 cents above the $8.18 paid last quarter, and 23 cents higher than the $8.08 paid last year. Agricultural services paid workers an average of $8.85 per hour compared with $8.30 paid last quarter and $8.60 paid last year.

    There were 1.46 million hired workers on the Nation's farms and ranches the week of July 11-17, 1999, up 1 percent from a year ago. There were 1.14 million workers hired directly by farm operators. Agricultural service employees on farms and ranches made up the remaining 319,000 workers. Migrant workers accounted for 12.5 percent of the July hired workforce compared to 13.7 percent last year.

    Farm operators paid their hired workers an average wage rate of $7.58 per hour during the July 1999 survey week, up 33 cents from a year earlier. Field Workers received an average of $7.05 per hour, up 27 cents from last July. Livestock Workers earned $7.15 per hour compared with $6.91 a year earlier. The Field and Livestock Workers combined wage rate was up 27 cents from last year.

    Number of hours worked averaged 39.8 hours for hired workers during the survey week compared with 40.7 hours a year ago.

    The largest increases in number of hired farm workers over last year occurred in the Pacific (Oregon and Washington), Corn Belt I (Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio), and Lake (Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) regions. In the Pacific region, winter wheat harvest was starting. Early potato and onion harvest was in progress. Mint harvest was underway while sweet cherry and strawberry harvests neared completion. Apricot and vegetable harvesting continued. Raspberry harvest was peaking. Wheat, alfalfa, and oat harvesting; corn detasseling; hauling grain; baling hay and straw; applying post-emergence chemicals; and mowing pastures contributed to most of the worker increases in the Corn Belt I region. In the Lake region, blueberry harvest was in full swing while cherry picking was winding down. Wheat and oat harvest was active and most livestock operations were busy with second cuttings of hay.

    The largest declines in number of hired farm workers from a year ago were in the Mountain III (Arizona and New Mexico), Southeast (Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina), and Appalachian I (North Carolina and Virginia) regions. In Mountain III, rain delayed field activity for most of the survey reference week, thus contributing to fewer hired workers needed. Summer onion harvest was specifically slowed by wet weather. Field crop cultivation and spraying activity continued in the Southeast region where weather allowed.

    Hired farm worker wage rates in all regions were above a year ago. The largest increases occurred in the Southeast, Lake, and Northern Plains (North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas) regions. An increasingly competitive economic environment, coupled with a need to attract more skilled farm labor, continued to push hired farm wage rates higher in the above regions and nationwide.

REVISIONS: The April 1999 hired workers estimates were revised for the U.S. and California. These revisions were based on additional information received in California as part of the ongoing Federal-State cooperative program.

Table 1 -- Florida agricultural workers, number of workers, wage rates, and hours worked, July 11 - 17, 1999, with comparisons
Employer, Year, and survey week	Hired by farm operators
	Number of workers			Hours Worked Per Week	Wages Paid by Type of Work
	All	Expected to work			All	Field	Livestock
		150 days or more	149 days or less
HIRED BY FARMERS		Thousands		Hours	Dollars Per Hour 1/
1999
July 11 - 17	45 .0	40 .0	5 .0	39 .5	8 .31	7.25	7.30
April 11 - 17	54 .0	46 .0	8 .0	*41 .1	8 .18	7.40	6.90
January 10 - 16	55 .0	48 .0	7 .0	39 .1	8 .31	7.35	7.00
1998
October 11 - 17	47 .0	42 .0	5 .0	43 .0	7 .82	7.10	7.30
July 12 - 18	45 .0	40 .0	5 .0	41 .5	8 .08	7.25	6.90
April 12 - 18	57 .0	43 .0	14 .0	39 .7	7 .57	6.75	7.20
January 11 - 17	51 .0	41 .0	10 .0	38 .3	8 .22	7.45	8.00
1997
October 12 - 18	45 .0	41 .0	4 .0	39 .9	7 .75	7.10	7 .65
July 6 - 12	40 .0	36 .0	4 .0	41 .5	7 .60	6.71	6 .60
HIRED BY AGRICULTURAL SERVICES
1999
July 11 - 17	3 .0			45 .0	8 .85
April 11 - 17	9 .0			38 .0	8 .30
January 10 - 16	12 .0			35 .0	8 .50
1998
October 11 - 17	6 .0			30 .0	8 .05
July 12 - 18	5 .0			32 .0	8 .60
April 12 - 18	13 .0			40 .0	8 .40
January 11 - 17	16 .0			30 .0	8 .80
1997
October 12-18	6 .0			27 .0	8 .30
July 6 - 12	4 .0			39 .5	8 .10
HIRED BY BOTH FARMERS & AGRICULTURAL SERVICES
1999
July 11 - 17	48 .0				8 .35
April 11 - 17	63 .0				8 .20
January 10 - 16	67 .0				8 .34
1998
October 11 - 17	53 .0				7 .84
July 12 - 18	50 .0				8 .12
April 12 - 18	70 .0				7 .73
January 11 - 17	67 .0				8 .33
1997
October 12 - 18	51 .0				7 .80
July 6 - 12	44 .0				7 .64
1/ Benefits, such as housing and meals, are provided some workers but the values are not included in the wage rates. *Revised.

Table 2 -- Number of workers hired by farmers, wage rates, and hours worked, selected States, July 11 - 17, 1999, with comparisons 1/
Item	Florida	California	Texas & Oklahoma	Arizona & New Mexico	Hawaii	United States 2/
	Thousands
All hired workers
July 11 - 17, 1999	45	310	60	19	8	1,143
April 11 - 17, 1999	54	*286	51	20	7	*867
July 12 - 18, 1998	45	298	63	22	8	1,071
Expected to work   150 days or less
July 11 - 17, 1999	40	229	39	15	7	748
April 11 - 17, 1999	46	*240	37	17	6	*670
July 12 - 18, 1998	40	234	45	16	7	712
149 days or less
July 11 - 17, 1999	5	81	21	4	1	395
April 11 - 17, 1999	8	*46	14	3	1	*197
July 12 - 18, 1998	5	64	18	6	1	359
	Dollars per hour 3/
All hired worker wage rate
July 11 - 17, 1999	8 .31	7 .77	6 .60	7 .17	10 .88	7 .58
April 11 - 17, 1999	8 .18	*8 .00	7 .18	7 .65	*10 .81	*7 .83
July 12 - 18, 1998	8 .08	7 .72	6 .32	6 .65	10 .30	*7 .25
Wages by type of worker   Field & Livestock
July 11 - 17, 1999	7 .26	7 .19	6 .26	6 .56	9 .53	7 .07
April 11 - 17, 1999	7 .37	*7 .31	6 .51	6 .96	9 .38	*7 .27
July 12 - 18, 1998	7 .21	7 .19	5 .98	6 .22	8 .91	6 .80
Field
July 11 - 17, 1999	7 .25	7 .15	6 .23	6 .52	9 .51	7 .05
April 11 - 17, 1999	7 .40	*7 .20	6 .41	6 .77	9 .45	7 .23
July 12 - 18, 1998	7 .25	7 .10	5 .98	6 .11	8 .82	6 .78
Livestock
July 11 - 17, 1999	7 .30	7 .59	6 .40	6 .68	4/	7 .15
April 11 - 17, 1999	6 .90	*8 .29	6 .66	7 .58	4/	*7 .39
July 12 - 18, 1998	6 .90	8 .05	5 .98	6 .74	4/	6 .91
	Average hours per week
Hours worked by all hired workers
July 11 - 17, 1999	39 .5	44 .6	40 .3	47 .2	37 .4	39 .8
April 11 - 17, 1999	*41 .1	*40 .5	36 .1	44 .1	37 .3	*39 .5
July 12 - 18, 1998	41 .5	44 .5	44 .4	47 .7	36 .6	40 .7
1/ Excludes Agricultural Service workers. 2/ United States excludes Alaska. 3/ Value of any perquisites provided are not included in wage rates. 4/ Insufficient data for this category; included in all hired wages. *Revised.

Survey Procedures: These data were collected by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) during the last two weeks of July using sampling procedures to ensure every employer of agricultural workers had a chance of being selected.

Two samples of farm operators are selected. First, NASS maintains a list of farms that hire farm workers. Farms on this list are classified by size and type. Those expected to employ large numbers of workers are selected with greater frequency than those hiring few or no workers. A second sample consists of segments of land scientifically selected from an area sampling frame. Each June, highly trained interviewers locate each selected land segment and identify every farm operating land within the sample segment's boundaries. The names of farms found in these area segments are matched against the NASS list of farms; those not found on the list are included in the labor survey sample to represent all farms. This methodology is known as multiple frame sampling, with an area sample used to measure the incompleteness of the list. Additionally, a list of agricultural service firms was sampled in California and Florida. The survey reference week was July 11-17, 1999.

Reliability: Two types of errors, sampling and nonsampling, are possible in an estimate based on a sample survey. Both types affect the "precision" of the estimates.

Sampling error occurs because a complete census is not taken. The sampling error measures the variation in estimates from the average of all possible samples. An estimate of 100 with a sampling error of 1 would mean that chances are 19 out of 20 that the estimates from all possible samples averaged together would be between 98 and 102; which is the survey estimate, plus or minus two times the sampling error. The sampling error expressed as a percent of the estimate is called the relative sampling error. The relative sampling error for number of hired workers at the U.S. level was 3.7 percent. The relative sampling error for the number of hired workers generally ranged between 9 and 24 percent at the regional level. The U.S. all hired farm worker wage rate had a relative sampling error of 1.2 percent. The relative sampling error was 0.9 percent for the combined field and livestock worker wage rate. Relative sampling errors for the all hired farm worker wage rate generally ranged between 2 and 9 percent at the regional levels. Relative sampling errors for wage rates published by type of farm and economic class of farm ranged between 2 and 18 percent at the regional level.

Nonsampling errors can occur in a complete census as well as in sample surveys. They are caused by the inability to obtain correct information from each operation sampled, differences in interpreting questions or definitions, and mistakes in editing, coding, or processing the data. Special efforts are taken at each step of the survey to minimize nonsampling errors.

Revision Policy: Farm labor information is subject to revision the next time the information is published or the year after the original publication date. The basis for revision must be supported by additional data that directly affect the level of the estimate. Worker numbers and wage rates for July 1998 and April 1999 were subject to revision with this report. Revisions were made and previous data are reprinted in this report for your information. The November 19th report will have information for the survey week of October 10-16, 1999. The report will include the number of All Hired Workers, Average Hours Worked by Hired Workers and the All Hired Worker Wage Rates at the regional and U.S. levels. The wage rate for field, livestock, and combined field and livestock workers will be available for the regional and U.S. level. The number of Agricultural Service Workers and the corresponding wage rates will be published for California and Florida.