May 21, 2007

Wage Rates Up Slightly From Last Year

WYOMING: The number of hired farm and ranch workers in the tri-state region during the week of July 8-14, 2007 was down 8,000 (27 percent) from a year ago, according to Vito Wagner with the Wyoming Field Office of USDA NASS. During this period, 22,000 hired workers were working on farms and ranches in the Northern Rocky Mountain Region which includes Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. The total excludes agricultural service workers. Of the 22,000 hired workers, 15,000 were expected to work for 150 days or more and 7,000 were expected to work 149 days or less, compared with 21,000 and 9,000 last year.

The average wage rate for all hired workers in the tri-state labor force during the survey week was $9.20 per hour, up 6 cents (1 percent) from July 2006. Hired field workers were paid an average wage of $8.36 per hour compared with $8.41 last year. Hired livestock workers averaged $9.22 per hour compared with $9.06 last year.

The average number of hours worked during the survey week was 43.4 compared with 42.3 last July.

UNITED STATES: There were 1,205,000 hired workers on the Nation’s farms and ranches during the week of July 8-14, 2007, up 1 percent from a year ago. Of these hired workers, 847,000 workers were hired directly by farm operators. Agricultural service employees on farms and ranches made up the remaining 358,000 workers.

Farm operators paid their hired workers an average wage of $10.04 per hour during the July 2007 reference week, up 32 cents from a year earlier. Field workers received an average of $9.31 per hour, up 38 cents from last July, while livestock workers earned $9.80 per hour compared with $9.49 a year earlier. The field and livestock worker combined wage rate, at $9.44 per hour, was up 37 cents from last year.

The number of hours worked averaged 41.6 hours for hired workers during the survey week, up 1 percent from a year ago.