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EDD reported on the characteristics of workers employed on agriculture based on Current Population Survey data for 2008, which found 372,600 farm workers. Most had farming occupations, 63 percent, but 22 percent had professional or managerial occupations.

These workers were 76 percent male and half of farm workers were ages 25 to 44. CPS data show that the farm work force aged between 2006 and 2008. In 2006, 43 percent of farm workers were less than 35, but in 2008 the under-35 share dropped to 35 percent.

Hispanics were two-thirds of farm workers and a third of nonfarm workers in 2008, and 95 percent of Hispanic farm workers were born in Mexico (82 percent of Hispanic nonfarm workers were born in Mexico). Half of the Hispanic farm workers spoke only Spanish, compared to less than 10 percent of Hispanic nonfarm workers.

In 2008, 56 percent of farm workers had not completed high school, compared to 15 percent of nonfarm workers. Almost half of California farm workers did not complete nine years of schooling.

The CPS found that 67 percent of California farm workers were foreign-born compared 29 percent of the state's nonfarm workers. Foreign-born farm workers tend to be younger, age 45, while US-born California farm workers tend to be 55 or older.

CPS data suggest that the exit of farm workers to construction jobs brought newcomers from Mexico. Construction-industry employment in California rose from 1.1 million in 2003 to a peak 1.5 million in 2007. The share of foreign-born farm workers who were not US citizens rose from 51 percent to 56 percent over these years.

Employment and Earnings. The CPS found a 14 percent unemployment rate among farm workers in 2008, compared to six percent for nonfarm workers. Surprisingly, it found that less than two percent of California farm workers had more than one employer in 2008, compared to five percent of nonfarm workers.

Hourly wages in 2008 were low? 62 percent of California farm workers earned $10 an hour or less, including 32 percent who earned $8 an hour or less; the state's minimum wage was $8 an hour in 2008. In 2006, only 23 percent of farm workers earned the then $6.75 an hour minimum wage or less, suggesting that employers did not keep raising wages as the minimum wage rose.

Almost half of California farm workers had family incomes of less than $35,000 in 2008, compared 21 percent of nonfarm workers; a third of farm workers had family incomes of more than $50,000. Foreign-born non-US citizens had the lowest incomes.

California Agricultural Employment, 2008. www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/?pageid=158