The number of workers paid by farmers and agricul tural services totaled 50,000 for the week of July 8 through 14. Farmers hired 48,000 workers compared with 63,000 in April 2001 and 46,000 in July 2000. Agricultural services provided 2,000 paid workers, down 12,000 from the 14,000 provided last quarter, but equal to the number supplied a year ago. Scattered rains interrupted some field work during the survey week. Grove caretakers mowed, chopped and disced cover crops; applied fertilizers and sprays as needed; and hedged, topped, and burned grove debris. Vegetable producers prepared land for fall crop planting. Dade County
growers continued harvesting okra. Hay making and tobacco harvesting were active.

  The July 2001 all hired worker wage rate averaged $8.69 per hour, thirty-one cents or four percent above the $8.38 per hour paid in April, and twenty cents or two percent above the $8.49 paid last year. Farmers paid an average of $8.65 per hour, a quarter above the $8.40 paid in April, and eighteen cents above the $8.47 paid last year. Agricultural services paid workers an average of $9.54 per hour; $1.24 or fifteen percent above the $8.30 paid last quarter, but fifty-four cents above the $9.00 paid July 2000.

  There were 1.37 million hired workers on the Nation's farms and ranches the week of July 8-14, 2001, virtually the same as a year ago. There were 1.04 million workers hired directly by farm operators. Agricultural service employees on farms and ranches made up the remaining 335,000 workers. Migrant workers accounted for 11.1 percent of the July hired workforce compared with 11.5 percent in July 2000.

  Farm operators paid their hired workers an average wage rate of $8.29 per hour during the July 2001 survey week, up 36 cents from a year earlier. Field workers received an average of $7.70 per hour, up 33 cents from last July. Livestock workers earned $7.89 per hour compared with $7.68 a year earlier. The Field and Livestock worker combined wage rate at $7.75 was up 32 cents from last year. Number of hours worked averaged 39.9 hours for hired workers during the survey week compared with 40.0 hours a year ago.

  The largest increases in number of hired farm workers over last year occurred in the Southern Plains (Oklahoma and Texas) and Appalachian I (North Carolina and Virginia) regions. In the Southern Plains, farmers were working ground after wheat harvest and irrigating to prevent crop stress. Ranchers were busy with supplemental feeding of cattle. In the Appalachian I region, dry conditions prevailed as major farm activities included topping tobacco and making hay.

  The largest decreases in number of hired farm workers from a year ago were in the California, Southeast (Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina), and Delta (Arkan sas, Louisiana, and Mississippi) regions. In California, water availability has caused farmers to plant fewer acres and lay off workers. Rain across portions of the Southeast region have delayed some field work. In the Delta region, rains helped crop conditions but slowed field activity.

  Hired farm worker wage rates were above a year ago in most regions. The largest increases occurred in the Mountain III (Arizona and New Mexico) and Pacific (Oregon and Washington) regions. In both regions, higher wages were reported for field and livestock workers.

  Regions showing declines in the hired farm worker wage rates were in the Northeast I (New England and New York), and Corn Belt II (Iowa and Missouri) regions. Declines of hired wage rates in the Northeast I region were generally related to fewer higher paid field workers. In the Corn Belt II region, even though livestock workers in creased, a larger decline in livestock wages held all hired wage rates lower than a year ago.

Table 1 -- Florida agricultural workers, number of workers, wage rates, and hours worked, July 8 - 14, 2001, with comparisons
Employer, Year, and survey week	Hired Workers
	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/
2001
July 8 - 14	48 .0	43 .0	5 .0	40 .8	8 .65	7.50	7.65
April 8 - 14	63 .0	52 .0	11 .0	39 .9	8 .40	7.75	7.90
January 7 - 13	55 .0	47 .0	8 .0	37 .6	8 .29	7.65	7.90
2000
October 8 - 14	50 .0	43 .0	7 .0	38 .9	8 .72	8.00	7.30
July 9 - 15	46 .0	42 .0	4 .0	42 .0	8 .47	7.75	7.45
April 9 - 15	70 .0	62 .0	8 .0	40 .4	8 .53	7.70	7.80
January 9 - 15	60 .0	48 .0	12 .0	41 .9	8 .28	7.40	7.50
1999
October 10 - 16	58 .0	47 .0	11 .0	38 .8	8 .05	7.05	7.00
July 11 - 17	45 .0	40 .0	5 .0	39 .7	8 .32	7.25	7.30
HIRED BY AGRICULTURAL SERVICES
2001
July 8 - 14	2 .0			43 .5	9 .54
April 8 - 14	14 .0			39 .0	8 .30
January 7 - 13	18 .0			29 .5	8 .70
2000
October 8 - 14	11 .0			32 .0	8 .80
July 9 - 15	2 .0			43 .0	9 .00
April 9 - 15	12 .0			36 .5	8 .50
January 9 - 15	16 .0			36 .5	8 .60
1999
October 10 - 16	5 .0			32 .0	8 .65
July 11 - 17	3 .0			45 .0	8 .85
HIRED BY BOTH FARMERS & AGRICULTURAL SERVICES
2001
July 8 - 14	50 .0				8 .69
April 8 - 14	77 .0				8 .38
January 7 - 13	73 .0				8 .37
2000
October 8 - 14	61 .0				8 .73
July 9 -15	48 .0				8 .49
April 9 - 15	82 .0				8 .53
January 9 - 15	76 .0				8 .34
1999
October 10 - 16	63 .0				8 .09
July 11 - 17	48 .0				8 .36
1/ Benefits, such as housing and meals, are provided some workers but the values are not included in the wage rates.

Table 2 -- Number of workers hired by farmers, wage rates, and hours worked, selected States, July 8 - 14, 2001, with comparisons 1/
Item	Florida	California	Texas & Oklahoma	Arizona & New Mexico	Hawaii	United States 2/
	Thousands
All hired workers
July 8 - 14, 2001	48	242	85	18	7	1,039
April 8 - 14, 2001	63	168	77	22	7	804
July 9 - 15, 2000	46	266	77	20	8	1,084
Expected to work
150 days or more
July 8 - 14, 2001	43	192	62	15	6	722
April 8 - 14, 2001	52	133	59	19	6	627
July 9 - 15, 2000	42	204	51	16	7	724
149 days or less
July 8 - 14, 2001	5	50	23	3	1	317
April 8 - 14, 2001	11	35	18	3	1	177
July 9 - 15, 2000	4	62	26	4	1	360
	Dollars per hour 3/
All hired worker wage rate
July 8 - 14, 2001	8.65	8.76	7.23	8.12	11.21	8.29
April 8 - 14, 2001	8.40	8.59	7.86	7.46	10.67	8.31
July 9 - 15, 2000	8.47	8.14	7.38	7.30	10.76	7.93
Wages by type of worker
Field & Livestock
July 8 - 14, 2001	7.53	8.10	6.85	7.46	9.60	7.75
April 8 - 14, 2001	7.77	7.96	7.33	6.90	9.03	7.71
July 9 - 15, 2000	7.70	7.56	6.85	6.63	9.09	7.43
Field
July 8 - 14, 2001	7.50	7.97	6.58	7.00	9.55	7.70
April 8 - 14, 2001	7.75	7.82	7.10	6.92	9.06	7.61
July 9 - 15, 2000	7.75	7.46	6.56	6.43	9.17	7.37
Livestock
July 8 - 14, 2001	7.65	9.49	7.23	8.52	4/	7.89
April 8 - 14, 2001	7.90	9.02	7.71	6.80	4/	8.01
July 9 - 15, 2000	7.45	8.32	7.55	7.17	4/	7.68
	Average hours per week
Hours worked by all hired workers
July 8 - 14, 2001	40.8	44.3	38.3	47.7	38.3	39.9
April 8 - 14, 2001	39.9	42.1	38.6	46.1	36.2	40.2
July 9 - 15, 2000	42.0	44.1	39.9	46.6	36.7	40.0
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.

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 8-14, 2001.

Reliability: Two types of errors, sampling and non sampling, 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 possi ble 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 3.8 percent. The relative sampling error for the number of hired workers generally ranged between 10 and 20 percent at the regional level. The U.S. all hired farm worker wage rate had a relative sampling error of 0.8 percent. The relative sampling error was 0.7 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 5 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 22 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 April 2001 and July 2000 were subject to revision within this report. Revisions were made and previous data are reprinted in this report for your information.

Next Farm Labor Publication Date: The November 16th report will have information for the survey week of October 7-13, 2001. 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 also be available at the regional and U.S. level.