The number of workers paid by farmers and agricultural services totaled 63,000 for the week of April 7 through 13. Farmers hired 52,000 workers compared with 62,000 in January and 63,000 in April 2001. Agricultural services provided 11,000 paid workers, down 8,000 from the 19,000 provided last quarter, and down 3,000 from the 14,000 supplied a year ago. Nearly daily rainfall slowed fieldwork in the Panhandle during the survey week. Cotton planting got underway while producers continued to plant corn and prepare land for peanut planting. Citrus harvest slowed as supplies dwindled. Grove caretakers mowed, chopped and disced cover crops, hedged, topped and bush hogged cut limbs in groves completely picked, cut and pushed dead trees, applied nutritional sprays and replanted as needed. Spring crop vegetableharvesting slowly increased in the Palmetto-Ruskin area as crops started to mature. Potato digging began around Hastings and watermelon harvesting slowly gained momentum around Immoka lee.

  The April 2002 all hired worker wage rate averaged $8.63 per hour, down 17 cents or two percent from the January 2002 wage, but 25 cents or three percent higher than the $8.38 paid last year. Farmers paid an average of $8.57 per hour, 40 cents below the $8.97 paid in January, but 17 cents above the $8.40 paid last year. Agricultural services paid workers an average of $9.00 per hour, 75 cents or nine percent above the $8.25 paid last quarter and 70 cents or eight percent above the $8.30 paid last year.

  There were 1.08 million hired workers on the Nation's farms and ranches during the week of April 7-13, 2002, up 6 percent from a year ago. There were 890,000 workers hired directly by farm operators. Agricultural service employees on farms and ranches made up the remaining 189,000 workers. Migrant workers accounted for 8.8 percent of the April hired work force compared with 8.9 percent in April 2001. The estimate of migrant workers, as a percent of all hired workers, will be discontinued after this report.

  Farm operators paid their hired workers an average wage rate of $8.83 per hour during the April 2002 survey week, up 52 cents from a year earlier. Field workers received an average of $8.06 per hour, up 45 cents from last April. Livestock workers earned $8.43 per hour compared with $8.01 a year earlier. The Field and Livestock worker combined wage rate was up 44 cents from last year.

  Number of hours worked averaged 40.2 hours for hired workers during the survey week, unchanged from a year ago.

  The largest increases in number of hired farm workers over last year occurred in California, Lake (Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin), Northeast II (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania), Appalachian I (North Carolina and Virginia), and Corn Belt II (Iowa and Missouri) regions. Mild weather in California promoted field crop, fruit and vegetable, and seasonal activities, unlike the drier conditions in 2001, which reduced planted acres and demand for labor. In the Lake region, weather was generally more favorable for agricultural work this April. Inaddition to field work, dairy, poultry, hog, and equine operations continued to be active. Spring work activities got an earlier start in the Northeast and Appalachian I regions because of the mild weather. Despite isolated showers across much of the Corn Belt II region, more days were suitable for field work this year and work activities were in full swing.

  The largest decreases in number of hired farm workers, from a year ago, were in the Southern Plains (Oklahoma and Texas), Florida, Corn Belt I (Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio), Appalachian II (Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia), and Mountain II (Colorado, Nevada, and Utah). Field activities in the Southern Plains region slowed as much needed rain drenched northern areas of Texas and Oklahoma. A wet week across much of Florida, Corn Belt I, and Appalachian II regions also limited field activities. Mild weather in the Mountain II region advanced work activities ahead of normal with fewer workers working longer hours. Primary activities included seeding small grains, fertilizing, field preparations for row crop planting, tending to cattle and sheep, and nursery activities.

  Hired farm worker wage rates were above a year ago in all regions. The largest increases occurred in the Mountain II, Mountain III (Arizona and New Mexico) and Appalachian I regions. The higher wages resulted from fewer low paid seasonal workers on the payrolls during the survey week.

Revisions: The January 2002 estimates for hired workers and wage rates were revised for California and the U.S. Hired worker wage rates were also revised for Florida.

Table 1 -- Florida agricultural workers, number of workers, wage rates, and hours worked, April 7 - 13, 2002, 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/
2002
April 7 - 13	52.0	46.0	6.0	40.6	8.57	7.75	7.50
January 6 - 12	62.0	50.0	12.0	37.2	*8.97	8.15	*8.55
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
HIRED BY AGRICULTURAL SERVICES
2002
April 7 - 13	11.0			34.0	9.00
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
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
HIRED BY BOTH FARMERS & AGRICULTURAL SERVICES
2002
April 7- 13	63.0				8.63
January 6 - 12	81.0				*8.80
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
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, April 7 - 13, 2002, with comparisons 1/
Item	Florida	California	Texas & Oklahoma	Arizona & New Mexico	Hawaii	United States 2/
	Thousands
All hired workers
April 7 - 13, 2002	52	245	60	20	7	890
January 6-12, 2002	62	*186	61	18	8	*707
April 8 - 14, 2001	63	168	77	22	7	804
Expected to work
150 days or more
April 7 - 13, 2002	46	209	50	18	6	722
January 6-12, 2002	50	*145	54	16	7	*584
April 8 - 14, 2001	52	133	59	19	6	627
149 days or less
April 7 - 13, 2002	6	36	10	2	1	168
January 6-12, 2002	12	*41	7	2	1	*123
April 8 - 14, 2001	11	35	18	3	1	177
	Dollars per hour 3/
All hired worker wage rate
April 7 - 13, 2002	8.57	9.13	7.95	8.21	11.14	8.83
January 6-12, 2002	*8.97	*9.22	8.05	8.42	10.90	*8.97
April 8 - 14, 2001	8.40	8.59	7.86	7.46	10.67	8.31
Wages by type of worker
Field & Livestock
April 7 - 13, 2002	7.72	8.47	7.31	7.71	9.43	8.15
January 6-12, 2002	*8.20	*8.36	7.57	7.85	9.33	*8.23
April 8 - 14, 2001	7.77	7.96	7.33	6.90	9.03	7.71
Field
April 7 - 13, 2002	7.75	8.33	6.92	7.51	9.40	8.06
January 6-12, 2002	8.15	8.25	7.82	7.57	9.36	8.25
April 8 - 14, 2001	7.75	7.82	7.10	6.92	9.06	7.61
Livestock
April 7 - 13, 2002	7.50	10.20	7.78	8.35	4/	8.43
January 6-12, 2002	*8.55	9.69	7.37	8.48	4/	*8.20
April 8 - 14, 2001	7.90	9.02	7.71	6.80	4/	8.01
	Average hours per week
Hours worked by all hired workers
April 7 - 13, 2002	40.6	43.7	39.6	46.2	35.8	40.2
January 6-12, 2002	37.2	*42.1	41.5	47.7	37.0	*38.5
April 8 - 14, 2001	39.9	42.1	38.6	46.1	36.2	40.2
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. * Revised.

Survey Procedures: These data were collected by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) during the last two weeks of April 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 April 7-13, 2002

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 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 4.5 percent. The relative samplingerror for the number of hired workers generally ranged between 5 and 29 percent at the regional level. The U.S. all hired farm worker wage rate had a relative sampling error of 1.9 percent. The relative sampling error was 1.0 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 7 percent at the regional levels. Relative sampling errors for wage rates published by type of farm and economic class of farm ranged between 1 and 20 percent at the regional level.

Non-sampling 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 non-sampling 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 January 2002 were subject to revision with this report. Revisions were made and previous data are reprinted in this report for your information.

Next Farm Labor Publication Date: The August 16th report will have information for the survey week of July 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.