Labor Outlook Part 2

Labor Outlook Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Earlier this growing season at least one asparagus grower abandoned his crop due to the lack of skilled labor. With cherry harvest underway, Mike Gempler, Executive Director of the Washington Growers League says it has been harder to get migrant workers across the border.

GEMPLER: We’ve been trying to develop our domestic workforce more. We have more kids working now, you know teenagers during the non-school year picking cherries in the summer. That’s been a success of sorts, getting more kids in there. Training them; working with high schools trying to get kids to work. And trying to develop the rest of the domestic workforce as much as we can.

He says that due to the nature of these jobs...they are not really attractive to most Americans.

GEMPLER: Because they’re hard physically. I mean if I were to go out and pick for a couple of days I’d be really sore so it’s hard physical work. You have to travel a little bit to get to the job. They don’t last forever. They’re not year-round jobs. There are a lot of reasons why people in the U.S. will take another job first.

Bottom line though to Gempler is that this is an income opportunity.

GEMPLER: And I’m hoping that domestically that more people will want to work to earn money for that new car or for school clothes or college or whatever and see it as an income opportunity - as a seasonal opportunity for them. However, I also don’t see the domestic workforce being sufficient in size to meet all the needs of the ag industry by any means.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.