Over the past three decades, California farmers hired 20% fewer workers directly, reducing average direct-hire employment in crops from 203,000 to 160,000. Meanwhile, crop-support employment rose by 60%, from an average of 132,000 in 1990 to 212,000 in 2020. Combined crop and crop-support employment accounts for over 90% of California’s agricultural employment. Within crop support employment , the farm labor contractor share of average crop-support employment rose from 60% to 67% . FVH commodities account for 90% of direct-hire crop employment, including 55% for fruits and nuts, 20% for vegetables and melons, and 15% for greenhouses and nurseries. Employers are assigned to the NAICS code that represents the majority of their sales, so grape vineyards can be distinguished from strawberry, other berry, and non-citrus tree fruit farms. These four types of farms account for almost three-fourths of direct-hire crop employment. Between 1990 and 2020, average direct-hire employment in grapes fell by almost half; strawberry employment doubled; employment in other berries such as blueberries and raspberries tripled; and average employment in non-citrus tree fruits such as peaches, nectarines, stackable planters and plums fell by a third . Note that there is no commodity information for workers brought to farms by labor contractors.The gaps between peak and trough months of agricultural employment are shrinking.
Between 1990 and 2000, average agricultural employment rose by almost 10%, from 367,000 to 400,000, and rose especially fast during the winter and spring months, reducing the peak-trough ratio from 1.8 in 1990 to 1.6 in 2000 . Between 2000 and 2010, average employment fell from 400,000 to 380,000, and the peak-trough ratio remained at 1.6. Between 2010 and 2020, average employment rose above 400,000, and the peak-trough employment ratio fell to 1.4. Average employment rose during the winter months and was stable during the summer months. Declining seasonality was accompanied by a rising share of farm labor contractor employment; the farm labor contractor share of the state’s average agricultural employment rose from 20% to 35% between 1990 and 2020 . The largest jump in the FLC share of agricultural employment occurred in the 1990s, when there was an influx of undocumented Mexican workers seeking jobs at a time of low U.S. unemployment. The FLC share of California agricultural employment was stable between 2000 and 2010, but jumped between 2010 and 2020. The FLC share of the state’s average agricultural employment is highest during the summer months of May through August. Three regions account for over 90% of the state’s average agricultural employment: the San Joaquin Valley, the Central Coast region centered on Monterey, and the South Coast, which includes Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
Monterey County was the leading producer of hand-harvested fruits and vegetables in 1990, and was joined in 2000 by Fresno, Kern, and Tulare counties . Monterey continued to lead in hand-harvested fruits and vegetables in 2020 with over 4 million tons, but Fresno, Kern, and Tulare also expanded to each produce more than 2 million tons of hand-harvested fruits and vegetables. This helps explain rising farm employment and reduced seasonality.The San Joaquin Valley, from San Joaquin in the north to Kern County in the south, accounts for half of the state’s average agricultural employment. SJV average agricultural employment rose from 170,000 in 1990 to 200,000 in 2000, dipped to 185,000 in 2010, and was almost 200,000 in 2020. Seasonality often increases in smaller geographic areas, but the peak-trough employment ratio fell more in the SJV than it did statewide. The SJV peak-trough ratio fell from 2.2 in 1990 to 1.4 in 2020, more than the drop in the California peak-trough ratio, which fell from 1.8 to 1.4 over these three decades . Almost half of average agricultural employment in the San Joaquin Valley is with farm labor contractors, which explains why the SJV has a higher share of the state’s FLC employment than of overall agricultural employment. The SJV had over 60% of California’s FLC employment in 2020, versus 50% of the state’s agricultural employment. Average FLC employment in the SJV rose sharply between 1990 and 2000, was stable between 2000 and 2010, and rose between 2010 and 2020, when FLC employment was 45% of the SJV’s average agricultural employment. The FLC share of SJV agricultural employment is highest during the summer months and lowest in April .This region includes Monterey County — the U.S. salad and berry bowl. Average employment in Central Coast agriculture rose from 54,000 in 1990 and 2000 to 70,000 by 2020, or a sixth of California’s agricultural employment, reflecting more strawberry acreage.
Seasonality is more pronounced in the Central Coast than in the SJV, peaking in July 2020 at 89,000 and reaching a low of 46,000 in January 2020 for a peak-trough ratio of 1.9 . This is significantly higher than the 1.4 peak-trough ratio in the SJV. The farm labor contractor share of Central Coast agricultural employment rose sharply between 1990 and 2020. In 1990, FLC average employment was one sixth of Central Coast agricultural employment; by 2020, the FLC share was a third. Peak FLC employment in the Central Coast was 31,000 in June and July 2020, while trough employment was 15,000 in December 2020, a FLC peak-trough ratio of 2.1 .The South Coast region, which includes the six coastal counties from San Luis Obispo in the north to San Diego in the south, had average agricultural employment of 70,000 in 2020, the same as the Central Coast. However, growth in average agricultural employment was slower in the South Coast than in the Central Coast over the past three decades . Farm labor contractors play a relatively small but growing role in South Coast farm labor markets. The FLC share of average agricultural employment rose from less than 10% in 1990 to almost a quarter by 2020. FLC seasonality in the South Coast is similar to FLC seasonality in other regions. There were 180 workers employed by FLCs in June 2020 for each 100 workers employed by FLCs in December .Strawberries and other berries are among the most labor-intensive commodities grown in California. Their production doubled and tripled over the past three decades . The state’s strawberries were worth $2 billion in 2020, raspberries were worth $405 million, and blueberries were worth $215 million, for total berry sales of over $2.6 billion. California’s average employment in berries more than doubled from 16,000 to 36,000 between 1990 and 2020, while seasonality as measured by employment peak-trough ratios declined from 5.9 to 2.5 . In 1990, berry employment was lowest at 5,000 in January and highest at 28,000 in May. In 2020, January was still the trough month; just under 20,000 workers were employed, compared with 49,000 in June. Berry employment in January tripled between 1990 and 2020 and doubled in May and June. The upsurge in winter and total berry employment is evident in a comparison of the largest sectors of employment in fruit and nut agriculture. In 1990, California fruit and nut employment peaked at 139,000 in September, including 67,000 in grapes, 34,000 in tree fruit, stacking pots and 16,000 in berries. By 2020, California fruit and nut employment peaked at 108,000 in June, including 49,000 in berries, 20,000 in grapes, and 19,000 in tree fruit. There were four workers in grapes for each berry worker in 1990, and 2.5 workers in berries for each grape worker in 2020. Note that some of the decline in grape and tree fruit employment may be due to employers switching from hiring workers directly to hiring them via FLCs; no data are collected on the commodities where FLC employees work. The Central Coast and South Coast regions accounted for 98% of average berry employment in 2020, including 60% in the South Coast and 38% in the Central Coast. The South Coast share of average berry employment rose from 50% in 1990 to 60%, in 2020, in part due to the expansion of berry production in the Santa Maria area of Santa Barbara County.Over the past three decades, average employment in California agriculture rose by 10% to 404,000, while seasonality declined due to more employment during the winter months. The ratio of monthly peak to monthly trough employment fell from 1.8 in 1990 to 1.4 in 2020, reflecting 474,000 workers employed in September 1990 and 270,000 in February 1990, compared with 470,000 workers employed in May 2020 and 346,000 in March 2020.
Many farming operations that hire large numbers of workers have year-round work forces comprised of local workers; they turn to contractors to bring local and H-2A workers to their farms to perform specific seasonal tasks. The FLC share of California agricultural employment rose from 20% in 1990 to 35% in 2020. FLC employment is more seasonal, with a statewide peak-trough employment ratio of 1.6 in 2020, higher than the 1.4 employment ratio for all agricultural employment. The San Joaquin Valley accounts for half of California’s agricultural employment, and seasonality in the valley declined faster than statewide. The SJV has over 60% of California’s FLC employment, and FLC employment in the SJV is slightly more seasonal than statewide. There were 170 workers employed by FLCs in the SJV in September 2020 for each 100 employed in April 2020. The Central Coast, centered on Monterey County, accounts for one-sixth of California’s agricultural employment, and its farm employment is more seasonal than in the SJV. For each 190 workers employed in June and July 2020 in the Central Coast, 100 were employed in January 2020. FLCs accounted for one-third of the 70,000 average agricultural jobs in the Central Coast in 2020, up from 20% in 1990. The South Coast region from San Luis Obispo to San Diego has the same average employment as the Central Coast, about 70,000, and experienced less growth between 1990 and 2020, up 12% versus a 30% increase in the Central Coast. The FLC share of agricultural employment in the South Coast more than doubled from 1990 to 2020, reaching almost a quarter of farm employment. The SJV, Central Coast, and South Coast accounted for 49%, 17%, and 17% of the state’s average agricultural employment of 404,000 in 2020, respectively, or a total of 83%. These three regions accounted for 63%, 17%, and 11%, respectively, of the state’s average FLC employment of 142,500, or 91% of the state’s total FLC employment. The trends highlighted by this analysis — stable farm employment, decreased seasonality, and more workers brought to farms by labor contractors — seem poised to continue. A growing share of the workers brought to farms by labor contractors are H-2A guest workers , whose costs are higher because H-2A workers must be provided transportation and housing at no cost and paid an Adverse Effect Wage Rate of $18.65 an hour in 2023, when the minimum wage was $15.50 an hour. A major challenge for the state’s agriculture is to ensure that H-2A workers are productive enough to justify their higher costs, which are offset in part by payroll tax savings and by the fact that H-2A workers ensure that farm work is done on time.While a more reliable work force benefits farmers, the division between local and H-2A workers raises some challenges. In the non-farm economy, the process of creating a core of directly hired workers supplemented by contract workers to perform specific tasks is called hollowing out or fissuring. This can be seen in manufacturers and service firms from banks to hotels. They may polarize work forces into high- and low-wage components that limit opportunities for upward mobility . Workers brought to workplaces by contractors often earn lower wages and have fewer opportunities to climb the job ladder than workers who are directly hired, which may complicate farm labor force management in the future.The future of agricultural work in the United States must account for at least two important trends: 1) the persistence of the industry being riddled with high rates of injury and illness and 2) the growing proportion of hired farm workers compared to family farm workers working in these dangerous environments. Most hired workers are from Mexico and Central America. Whether settled or migrant, these farm workers are often confronted with structural disadvantages that impede social justice and prosperity. Social structures like policies, economic systems, institutions, and social hierarchies have led to “health disparities, often along the lines of social categories .” The result is an already dangerous industry with vulnerable workers that face unjust risks.