Farm employment statistics depend on what is being measured: workers directly hired during a reference week, jobs in agricultural occupations, wage-and-salary positions, or the wider agriculture and related industries workforce. In 2025, those measures ranged from 512,000 workers directly hired by U.S. farms in a January reference week to 2.089 million people counted in agriculture and related industries in May.
Contents
- Direct farm hiring in 2025
- Hours and gross wages
- Agricultural occupations and pay
- Employment projections and annual openings
- Long-run measures of farm employment
- Seasonal H-2A employment
- Broader agriculture workforce measures
Direct farm hiring in 2025
The USDA’s Farm Labor 05/21/2025 report measures workers directly hired by farms and ranches during specific quarterly reference weeks. It is therefore a snapshot of hiring in those periods, not a count of every person who worked in agriculture during the year.
U.S. farms and ranches directly hired 512,000 workers during the January 12–18, 2025 reference week. During the April 6–12, 2025 reference week, the count was 637,000. Of the April total, 531,000 workers were expected to work 150 days or more. These figures come from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service report, Farm Labor 05/21/2025.
The April reference week also shows how direct hiring was distributed across selected regions and states:
| Location | Directly hired workers, April 6–12, 2025 |
|---|---|
| California | 126,000 |
| Southern Plains | 64,000 |
| Pacific region | 49,000 |
| Northeast I | 32,000 |
| Florida | 32,000 |
These locations are not interchangeable geographic categories: California and Florida are states, while Northeast I, Southern Plains, and Pacific are USDA reporting regions. The values describe workers directly hired during the same April reference week.
Hours and gross wages
Directly hired farm laborers worked an average of 40.0 hours during the January 12–18, 2025 reference week. The average rose to 40.8 hours during the April 6–12, 2025 reference week. The comparison reflects two separate reference weeks and should not be read as an annual average.
The average gross wage for all directly hired farm workers was $19.80 per hour in January 2025 and $19.52 per hour in April 2025. USDA also reported separate averages for field and livestock workers:
| Worker group | January 2025 | April 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| All directly hired farm workers | $19.80/hour | $19.52/hour |
| Field workers | $18.70/hour | $18.58/hour |
| Livestock workers | $18.15/hour | $18.15/hour |
| Field and livestock combined | $18.46/hour | $18.43/hour |
The source labels these figures as gross wages. They are hourly wage measures for the specified reference periods, not annual earnings. The January and April figures are reported in Farm Labor 05/21/2025.
Agricultural occupations and pay
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook counted 831,900 agricultural-worker jobs in 2025. Its occupation-level figures distinguish the work performed, so they do not represent the same scope as the USDA count of people directly hired during one week.
Crop, nursery, and greenhouse occupations accounted for 546,800 farmworkers and laborers. Farm, ranch, and aquacultural animal occupations accounted for 202,100 workers. BLS also counted 66,900 agricultural equipment operators, 9,300 agricultural workers in the all-other category, and 6,900 animal breeders.
For May 2025, the median annual wage for agricultural workers overall was $35,890. The occupation-specific medians were:
| Agricultural occupation | Employment in 2025 | Median annual wage, May 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Crop, nursery, and greenhouse farmworkers and laborers | 546,800 | $35,660 |
| Farmworkers tending farm, ranch, and aquacultural animals | 202,100 | $36,670 |
| Agricultural equipment operators | 66,900 | $41,730 |
| Agricultural workers, all other | 9,300 | $39,850 |
| Animal breeders | 6,900 | $51,130 |
The employment and median-wage figures are from BLS, Agricultural Workers: Occupational Outlook Handbook, with the measurement year specified above. In May 2025, the median annual wage for agricultural workers in wholesale trade was $37,800. Separately, May 2025 OEWS estimated 28,500 agricultural equipment operators with a mean wage of $21.02 per hour, according to BLS Table 1, National employment and wage data from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey. The OEWS estimate is a separate employment and wage measure from the occupational totals and medians in the Occupational Outlook Handbook.
Employment projections and annual openings
BLS projects overall agricultural-worker employment to decline 2 percent, or 13,300 jobs, from 2025 to 2035. A projected decline in employment does not mean that hiring will stop: BLS projects about 111,500 agricultural-worker openings per year on average from 2025 through 2035.
The projected direction differs by occupation. Animal-breeder employment is projected to increase 3 percent, or 200 jobs. Agricultural-equipment-operator employment is projected to increase 9 percent, or 5,700 jobs. Crop, nursery, and greenhouse farmworker employment is projected to decline 2 percent, or 13,200 jobs, while employment of farmworkers with farm, ranch, and aquacultural animals is projected to decline 3 percent, or 6,400 jobs.
| Occupation | Projected change, 2025–2035 |
|---|---|
| Agricultural workers overall | -2%, or -13,300 jobs |
| Animal breeders | +3%, or +200 jobs |
| Agricultural equipment operators | +9%, or +5,700 jobs |
| Crop, nursery, and greenhouse farmworkers | -2%, or -13,200 jobs |
| Farmworkers with farm, ranch, and aquacultural animals | -3%, or -6,400 jobs |
These are BLS projections for 2025–2035, not a forecast of the exact number of jobs in any particular state, farm, or growing season. The projected annual openings and occupation changes are reported in Agricultural Workers: Occupational Outlook Handbook.
Long-run measures of farm employment
The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages measured 1.07 million agriculture wage-and-salary jobs in 2010 and 1.18 million in 2024. Within that long-run comparison, crop-support services added about 48,400 jobs, a 17 percent increase, from 2010 to 2024. The livestock sector added about 42,000 jobs, a 19 percent increase, over the same period.
Those QCEW values describe wage-and-salary jobs and should not be treated as a complete count of everyone working on farms. A separate USDA Farm Labor Survey measure tracks self-employed and family farmworkers. That count was 7.60 million in 1950 and 2.06 million in 2000. The USDA Farm Labor Survey describes the change from 1950 to 2000 as a 73 percent decline. These historical figures are presented as the survey’s long-run measures; they are not independently verified here.
The industry and historical measures are summarized by USDA Economic Research Service in Farm Labor. The different definitions—wage-and-salary jobs, self-employed and family farmworkers, and occupation-based employment—are important when comparing figures across decades.
Seasonal H-2A employment
The H-2A program permits temporary agricultural employment for up to 10 months. Around 385,000 H-2A farm positions were certified in fiscal year 2024, compared with just over 48,000 in fiscal year 2005. Certification counts represent positions certified through the program and are not equivalent to a headcount of all farm employees.
The average duration of an H-2A certification was 5.75 months in fiscal year 2024. After accounting for that average duration, the roughly 385,000 certified positions represented around 184,000 full-year equivalents. About 80 percent of H-2A-certified jobs resulted in visas in recent years, according to USDA ERS, and around 315,500 H-2A visas were issued in fiscal year 2024.
The position history is shown in USDA ERS’s U.S. H-2A positions certified by State, fiscal years 2005–24. The program rule, average duration, full-year-equivalent estimate, and visa information are described in USDA ERS, Farm Labor. Fiscal-year measurements are not calendar-year employment totals.
Broader agriculture workforce measures
The Current Population Survey counted 2.089 million people employed in agriculture and related industries in May 2025. Within that total, it counted 1.403 million agriculture and related wage-and-salary workers, 646,000 self-employed unincorporated workers, and 40,000 unpaid family workers.
These categories illustrate why broad workforce estimates exceed narrower direct-hiring or occupation-based measures. The May 2025 CPS count includes agriculture and related industries and separates employment status; it is not limited to workers directly hired by farms during a particular reference week. The figures are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Situation News Release—2025 M05 Results.
Wage floors also vary by location under the H-2A adverse-effect wage-rate framework. For fiscal year 2025, the rate was $14.83 per hour in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi; $19.97 in California; $20.08 in Hawaii; and $22.23 in the District of Columbia. These are H-2A adverse-effect wage rates for the named jurisdictions and fiscal year, not national averages or the gross-wage averages reported for all directly hired farm workers.
The fiscal-year 2025 rates are listed in USDA ERS’s Adverse effect wage rates (AEWR), 2025. Together with the CPS, BLS, USDA farm-labor, QCEW, and H-2A measures, they provide different views of farm employment: seasonal hiring, occupation counts, pay, long-run industry jobs, temporary labor demand, and the broader agriculture workforce.