The number of workers paid by farmers and agricultural services totaled 56,000 for the week of October 7 through 13. Farmers hired 51,000 workers compared with 48,000 in July 2001 and 50,000 in October 2000. Agricultural services provided 5,000 paid workers, up 3,000 from the 2,000 provided last quarter, but down 6,000 from the 11,000 supplied a year ago. Although spotty showers brought from traces to over and inch of rain to a few southeast coastal and southern localities during the survey week, most areas remained dry. Peanut digging neared the end while cotton picking gained momentum with some producers starting to defoliate plants. Haying remained active. Sugarcane planting continued as weather permitted. Citrus growers picked a light volume while grove caretakers mowed, chopped and disced cover crops, removed vines from tree tops, fertilized, sprayed, planted resets and removed and burned dead trees. Vegetable growers harvested tomatoes, squash, hot peppers, sweet corn and okra. Planting of fall vegetables continued at a very active pace.

  The October 2001 all hired worker wage rate averaged $8.83 per hour, 14 cents or two percent above the $8.69 per hour paid in July, and ten cents or one percent above the $8.73 paid last year. Farmers paid an average of $8.84 per hour, 19 cents above the $8.65 paid in July, and twelve cents above the $8.72 paid last year. Agricultural services paid workers an average of $8.70 per hour, 84 cents or nine percent below the $9.54 paid last quarter, and ten cents below the $8.80 per hour paid in October 2000.

  There were 1.22 million hired workers on the Nation's farms and ranches the week of October 7-13, 2001, 2 percent fewer than a year ago. There were 959,000 workers hired directly by farm operators. Agricultural service employees on farms and ranches made up the remaining 262,000 workers. Migrant workers accounted for 12.1 percent of the October hired workforce, compared with 11.3 percent in October 2000.

  Farm operators paid their hired workers an average wage rate of $8.58 per hour during the October 2001 survey week, up 29 cents from a year earlier. Field workers received an average of $8.01 per hour, up 27 cents from last October. Livestock workers earned $8.36 per hour compared with $7.84 a year earlier. The field and livestock worker combined wage rate at $8.08 was up 32 cents from last year.

  The number of hours worked averaged 41.5 hours per week for hired workers during the survey week compared with 41.2 hours a year ago.

  The largest increases in number of hired farm workers over last year occurred in the Pacific (Oregon and Washington) and Corn Belt II (Iowa and Missouri) regions. In the Pacific region, more workers were employed to complete fall seeding and harvesting, prepare for Christmas trees harvest, and complete horticultural activities. Ranchers were active with supplemental feeding of cattle, weaning and vaccinating calves, and moving cattle to market. In the Corn Belt II region, widespread rains early in the survey week delayed harvesting activities. As fields dried during the week, more hired, supervisory, and other workers were employed to complete harvest.

  The largest decreases in number of hired farm workers from a year ago were in the Mountain I (Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming), Mountain II (Colorado, Nevada, and Utah), Mountain III (Arizona and New Mexico), and Appalachian I (North Carolina and Virginia) regions. Fall harvesting and seeding activities were near completion across much of the three Mountain regions. Dry, cool weather in the Appalachian I region allowed fall harvesting and seeding activities to advance toward completion.

  Hired farm worker wage rates were above a year ago in all regions, except Northeast I (New England and New York), Northeast II (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania), and Mountain I regions. The largest increases occurred in the Corn Belt I (Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio) and Corn Belt II regions. The higher wage rates in the Corn Belt regions were attributed to fewer lower paid field and livestock workers and more higher paid supervisory and other workers as widespread rains during the survey week hampered field activities.

  Regions showing slight declines in the hired farm worker wage rates were the Northeast I, Northeast II, and Mountain I regions. Declines of hired wage rates in the Northeast I region were generally related to fewer higher paid field workers, as crops progressed well during the growing season and harvest was com- plete. In the Northeast II region, fall harvest proceeded well ahead of the October 2000 harvest. In the same region, hired workers averaged more hours during the survey week. Fewer workers in the Mountain I region combined with more hours worked during the week resulted in the slight decline in wage rates for the region.

  The 2001 annual averages for the Nation's self-employed, unpaid, and hired workers were 1.56 million, 490,000 and 873,300, respectively. The annual average for self-employed workers was down 1 percent from a year ago, while the annual average for unpaid workers was up 1 percent. The hired worker annual average was down 2 percent from October 2000.

  The 2001 U.S. hired worker annual average wage rate was $8.44, up 4 percent from the 2000 annual average wage rate of $8.10. The Field and Livestock worker combined annual average wage rate was $7.86, up 4 percent from last year's annual average wage rate of $7.54.

Table 1 -- Florida agricultural workers, number of workers, wage rates, and hours worked,October 7 - 13, 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
October 7 - 13	51.0	44.0	7.0	41.8	8.84	7.70	8.00
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
HIRED BY AGRICULTURAL SERVICES
2001
October 7 - 13	5.0			34.0	8.70
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
HIRED BY BOTH FARMERS & AGRICULTURAL SERVICES
2001
October 7 - 13	56.0				8.83
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
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, October 7 - 13, 2001, with comparisons 1/
Item	Florida	California	Texas & Oklahoma	Arizona & New Mexico	Hawaii	United States 2/
	Thousands
All hired workers
October 7 - 13, 2001	51	223	68	17	8	959
July 8 - 14, 2001	48	242	85	18	7	1,039
October 8 - 14, 2000	50	242	61	21	8	952
Expected to work
150 days or more
October 7 - 13, 2001	44	168	54	14	7	676
July 8 - 14, 2001	43	192	62	15	6	722
October 8 - 14, 2000	43	184	49	18	7	662
149 days or less
October 7 - 13, 2001	7	55	14	3	1	283
July 8 - 14, 2001	5	50	23	3	1	317
October 8 - 14, 2000	7	58	12	3	1	290
	Dollars per hour 3/
All hired worker wage rate
October 7 - 13, 2001	8.84	8.56	8.01	7.85	10.78	8.58
July 8 - 14, 2001	8.65	8.76	7.23	8.12	11.21	8.29
October 8 - 14, 2000	8.72	8.44	7.59	7.52	10.73	8.29
Wages by type of worker
Field & Livestock
October 7 - 13, 2001	7.74	8.04	7.52	7.25	9.39	8.08
July 8 - 14, 2001	7.53	8.10	6.85	7.46	9.60	7.75
October 8 - 14, 2000	7.86	7.79	6.95	6.96	9.07	7.76
Field
October 7 - 13, 2001	7.70	7.91	7.16	6.87	9.32	8.01
July 8 - 14, 2001	7.50	7.97	6.58	7.00	9.55	7.70
October 8 - 14, 2000	8.00	7.70	6.71	6.71	9.05	7.74
Livestock
October 7 - 13, 2001	8.00	9.56	7.97	8.13	4/	8.36
July 8 - 14, 2001	7.65	9.49	7.23	8.52	4/	7.89
October 8 - 14, 2000	7.30	8.65	7.30	7.73	4/	7.84
	Average hours per week
Hours worked by all hired workers
October 7 - 13, 2001	41.8	46.6	40.0	46.6	37.6	41.5
July 8 - 14, 2001	40.8	44.3	38.3	47.7	38.3	39.9
October 8 - 14, 2000	38.9	43.2	37.3	43.6	35.8	41.2
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.

  Included with this report are the annual average wage rates for 2000 and 2001. Annual rates are the averages of the wage rates for each survey week weighted by the total number of hours worked during the week. The survey weeks include the 12th of the month for January, April, July, and October. Combining data for the four survey weeks provides a large enough sample to permit publication of wages at the State level. Annual average wage rates for both 2000 and 2001 are published at the State, regional and U.S. level for the all hired wage rate, the field worker wage rate, and the combined field and livestock worker wage rate. For 2001, the relative sampling error, at the U.S. level, was 1.0 percent for the all hired worker wage rate. The relative sampling error was 1.0 percent for the combined field and livestock worker wage rate. The relative sampling error for all hired farm worker and combined field and livestock worker wage rates generally ranged between 2 and 5 percent at the regional level and 2 to 12 percent at the State level.

Table 3--Annual average wage rates, number of workers, and hours worked, 2001 and 2000 1/ 2/
State and Region	Wages by Type of Worker			Number			Hours Worked by Hired Workers
				Self Employed	Unpaid	Hired
	All Hired	Field	Field & Livestock
2001
Florida	8.54	7.66	7.69	29.5	6.3	54.3	40.0
Texas & Oklahoma	7.74	7.01	7.28	253.5	65.5	73.8	38.7
Arizona & New Mexico	7.77	6.88	7.12	17.0	23.8	18.8	46.1
California	8.67	7.89	8.02	29.8	4.3	209.0	42.8
Hawaii	10.80	9.22	9.25	3.3	1.1	7.3	36.9
United States 3/	8.44	7.78	7.86	1,559.8	490.0	873.3	39.9
2000
Florida	8.49	7.68	7.66	29.5	5.5	56.5	40.8
Texas & Oklahoma	7.48	6.75	6.98	255.0	58.8	61.3	38.2
Arizona & New Mexico	7.34	6.59	6.71	14.8	23.8	19.0	45.8
California	8.21	7.48	7.56	39.0	10.5	237.8	43.7
Hawaii	10.62	9.09	9.05	3.1	1.0	7.8	36.5
United States 3/	8.10	7.50	7.54	1,574.8	487.5	890.3	40.1
1/ Excludes Agricultural Service Workers. 2/ Annual rates are averages of the published wage rates for each survey week weighted by the number of hours worked during the week. The annual average for all States, Regions, and the U.S. is based on data collected for January, April, July, and October. 3/ Excludes AK.