Survey of Labor Wages

Survey of Labor Wages

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. The state Employment Security Department has released new videos, in both English and Spanish, intended to help farm workers complete a first-of-its-kind survey about wages.

The ESD's Janelle Guthrie explains ...

JANELLE GUTHRIE ... "The video is intended to help employees understand how to answer this new survey that we're conducting this year to help us determine the prevailing wage rates. So, in the past, we've done surveys for agricultural employers, but per U.S. Department of Labor guidance, they asked us to also launch a worker's survey this year so that we can compare the results from the worker's survey to the employer responses to gain a better understanding of agriculture wages and practices in Washington state."

ESD Manager of Research and Analysis, Gustavo Aviles breaks down the current numbers ...

GUSTAVO AVILES ... "We surveyed 3,000 employers and we're, the sample size of the worker's survey is 8,000. And so far what we have gotten is 629 responses from employers and 487 responses from workers."

ESD will post results of the surveys on their website when available.

Listen tomorrow for more about this new survey and what the Employment Security Department hopes to learn from the responses and where it will lead.

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