Fam Labor Survey Released

Rising labor costs are adding to the financial pressure on the agriculture industry, particularly those using the H to a farm worker program. Samantha Ayoub, economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation, has insights from the newly released Farm Labor Survey.

“Field and livestock worker wages were $18.12 nationally, up 3.2% from a 2023 lease. However, no one realistically pays the national wage. So regionally, there was an average of about a four and a half percent increase in regional wages. There was actually a decrease in the lake region, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan down 2% to $18.15 but then we have places like the southeast, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, with nearly 10% increases.”

California is no longer the highest paying state for farm labor, as Hawaii now leads with an average wage of $20.08 which is a 7.2% increase from 2023 according to Ayoub,

“The farm labor survey combined, field and livestock worker wage becomes the adverse effect wage rate that DOL uses for six different standard occupation codes, and that's going to comprise 96% of h2 a workers in December, they will post the adverse effect wage rate, which is in essence copy and pasted from the farm labor survey, and that will become the field and farm worker wage for H2A workers.”

AFBF’s Samantha, Ayoub.