------------------------------------------------------------------------ FARM LABOR February 20, 2002 Florida Agricultural Statistics Service | 1222 Woodward Street | Orlando, Florida 32803 | 407 / 648-6013 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FLORIDA The number of workers paid by farmers and agricultural services totaled 81,000 for the week of January 6 through 12. Farmers hired 62,000 workers compared with 51,000 in October 2001 and 55,000 in January 2001. Agricultural services provided 19,000 paid workers, up 14,000 from the 5,000 provided last quarter, and up 1,000 from the 18,000 supplied a year ago. Cold weather curtailed some field activities during the survey week. Flower, foliage and nursery crop producers fired up heaters and sprinkled plants with water as protection from the cold temperatures. Citrus growers ran irrigation systems for cold protection and mowed, chopped and disced cover crops as harvesting continued. Vegetable harvesting and planting continued at a steady pace. Tobacco growersseeded hot beds while cotton producers baled the last fields. Sugarcane harvesting remained active in the Everglades region. The January 2002 all hired worker wage rate averaged $8.83 per hour, equal to the October 2001 wage and 46 cents or almost six percent higher than the $8.37 paid last year. Farmers paid an average of $9.02 per hour, 18 cents above the $8.84 paid in October, and 73 cents above the $8.29 paid last year. Agricultural services paid workers an average of $8.25 per hour, 45 cents or five percent below the $8.70 paid both last quarter and last year. UNITED STATES There were 914,000 hired workers on the Nation's farms and ranches the week of January 6-12, 2002, up 7 percent from a year ago. Of these hired workers, 731,000 workers were hired directly by farm operators. Agricultural service employees on farms and ranches made up the remaining 183,000 workers. Migrant workers accounted for 7.6 percent of the January hired workforce compared with 9.6 percent last year. Farm operators paid their hired workers an average wage of $8.96 per hour during the January 2002 survey week, up 30 cents from a year earlier. Field workers received an average of $8.25 per hour, up 49 cents from last January, while livestock workers earned $8.25 per hour compared with $8.07 a year earlier. The field and livestock worker combined wage rate at $8.25 was up 38 cents from last year. The number of hours worked averaged 38.6 hours for hired workers during the survey week compared with 37.3 hours a year ago. The largest increases in number of hired farm workers over last year occurred in the Corn Belt II (Iowa and Missouri), Delta (Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi), Appalachian I (North Carolina and Virginia), and Southeast (Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina) regions. In the Corn Belt II region, unseasonably warm weather increased field activities. Cold and wet conditions in the Delta region resulted in additional livestock care and feeding. Other work activities included preparation of farm equipment for spring field activities. In contrast, wet and wintery conditions in southern localities anddry conditions over much of the northern Appalachian I region required extra care and feeding activities for livestock. Farm, nursery, and ranching activities were underway in the Southeast region despite varying weather conditions. The largest decreases in number of hired farm workers from a year ago were in the Northern Plains (Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota), Corn Belt I (Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio), Appalachian II (Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia), and Southern Plains (Oklahoma and Texas) regions. While weather was generally favorable for fieldwork in these regions, the large decline in hired workers is attributed to less demand for field workers for this time of year. Hired farm worker wage rates were generally above a year ago in all regions. The largest increases occurred in Florida, Mountain III (Arizona and New Mexico), Corn Belt II, and Mountain II (Colorado, Nevada, and Utah) regions. The higher wages in these regions are generally attributable to fewer seasonal workers on the payroll. Revisions: July 2001 wage rates for field, field and livestock, and all hired workers in Hawaii and all hired workers in the Southeast region, published in the October 2001 release, were in error. The corrected wage rates for July 2001 in Hawaii are $9.38 for field workers, $9.44 for field and livestock workers, and $11.08 for all hired workers. In the Southeast region, the revised all hired wage rate is $7.59. October revisions are footnoted in the tables on the following pages. These revisions do not affect previously published annual average wage rates for 2001. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Table 1 -- Florida agricultural workers, number of workers, wage rates, and hours worked, January 6 - 12, 2002, with comparisons Hired Workers Number of workers Wages Paid by Type of Work Employer, Year, Expected to Hours and work Worked survey week Per All 150 149 All Field Livestock Week days days or more or less HIRED BY FARMERS Thousands Hours Dollars Per Hour 1/ 2002 January 6 - 12 62.0 50.0 12.0 37.2 9.02 8.15 9.05 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 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 January 9 - 15 60.0 48.0 12.0 41.9 8.28 7.40 7.50 HIRED BY AGRICULTURAL SERVICES 2002 January 6 - 12 19.0 38.5 8.25 2001 October 7 - 13 5.0 34.0 8.70 July 8 - 14 2.0 43.5 9.54 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 January 9 - 15 16.0 36.5 8.60 HIRED BY BOTH FARMERS & AGRICULTURAL SERVICES 2002 January 6 - 12 81.0 8.83 2001 October 7 - 13 56.0 8.83 July 8 - 14 50.0 8.69 January 7 - 13 73.0 8.37 2000 October 8 - 14 61.0 8.73 July 9 -15 48.0 8.49 January 9 - 15 76.0 8.34 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, January 6 - 12, 2002, with comparisons 1/ Arizona Item Florida California Texas & & Hawaii United Oklahoma New States 2/ Mexico Thousands All hired workers January 6-12, 2002 62 210 61 18 8 731 October 7 - 13, 2001 51 *255 68 17 8 *991 January 7 - 13, 2001 55 203 67 18 7 691 Expected to work 150 days or more January 6 - 12, 2002 50 158 54 16 7 597 October 7 - 13, 2001 44 *200 54 14 7 *708 January 7 - 13, 2001 47 161 54 16 6 573 149 days or less January 6 - 12, 2002 12 52 7 2 1 134 October 7 - 13, 2001 7 55 14 3 1 283 January 7 - 13, 2001 8 42 11 2 1 118 Dollars per hour 3/ All hired worker wage rate January 6 - 12, 2002 9.02 9.15 8.05 8.42 10.90 8.96 October 7 - 13, 2001 8.84 *8.57 8.01 7.85 10.78 *8.59 January 7 - 13, 2001 8.29 8.78 7.98 7.72 10.66 8.66 Wages by type of worker Field & Livestock January 6 - 12, 2002 8.26 8.39 7.57 7.85 9.33 8.25 October 7 - 13, 2001 7.74 8.04 7.52 7.25 9.39 *8.09 January 7 - 13, 2001 7.67 7.95 7.53 6.91 9.10 7.87 Field January 6 - 12, 2002 8.15 8.25 7.82 7.57 9.36 8.25 October 7 - 13, 2001 7.70 7.91 7.16 6.87 9.32 8.01 January 7 - 13, 2001 7.65 7.79 7.35 6.71 9.07 7.76 Livestock January 6 - 12, 2002 9.05 9.69 7.37 8.48 4/ 8.25 October 7 - 13, 2001 8.00 9.56 7.97 8.13 4/ *8.39 January 7 - 13, 2001 7.90 8.68 7.71 7.35 4/ 8.07 Average hours per week Hours worked by all hired workers January 6 - 12, 2002 37.2 42.2 41.5 47.7 37.0 38.6 October 7 - 13, 2001 41.8 *46.7 40.0 46.6 37.6 *41.7 January 7 - 13, 2001 37.6 37.3 38.1 44.2 35.6 37.3 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Reliability of Farm Labor Estimates Survey Procedures: These data were collected by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) during the last two weeks of January 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 January 6-12, 2002. Reliability: Two types of errors, sampling and nonsampl ing, 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 4.2 percent. The relative sampling error for the number of hired workers generally ranged between 4 and 21 percent at the regional level. The U.S. all hired farm worker wage rate had a relative sampling error of 1.1 percent. The relative sampling error was 1.1 percent for the combined field and livestock worker wage rate. Relative sampling errors for the all hired farm worker wage rate generally ranged between 1 and 11 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 32 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 October 2001 and January 2001 were subject to revision with this report. Revisions were made and previous data are reprinted in this report for your information. The May 17th report will have information for the survey week of April 7-13, 2002. 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. The number of Agricultural Service Workers and the corresponding wage rates will be published for California and Florida. ------------------------------------------------------------------------