-November 24,2020-
Valley farmers have had a tough time this year and those who work on those farms are fewer in number. In the 4-county South Valley, ag jobs are down 20% year-over-year – worse in some counties. EDD reports that in Kern, Tulare, Kings and Fresno counties there has been a loss of 33,000 jobs comparing Oct 2020 to Oct 2019- 164,500 in Oct 2019 vs 130,900 this October. By comparison non-farm jobs have declined 9% in this region.
Kern County leads the pack in the decline of farm jobs- down 30%. Kings County farm jobs fell from 8300 to 7200 – a 14% decline.
An important California farm customer – the food service and restaurant industry has been devastated by the COVID 19 pandemic.The Produce Marketing Association estimates that 45 to 48 percent of fresh produce tonnage goes to food-service firms, including restaurants, cafeterias and institutional dining, from hospitals to prisons. But much of that sector is shuttered.
Meanwhile the trade war and Covid continues to dampen another major outlet – farm exports – dropping 3.4% in the latest 3 month report to $2.810 billion from $2.908 billion.
Meanwhile COVID’s big shadow has reduced the number of workers who show up. A quarter of the farm employers responding to a summer 2020 California Farm Bureau Federation survey reported that work days were lost on their farms due to covid-related employee absences.
The federal BLS says employment of low-wage workers fell most due to Covid-19 lockdowns, and 40% of the lost jobs are not expected to return.Undocumented workers have declined in part because of fear of ICE
Farmers will tell you that the higher labor costs is a factor in all this and more use of labor-saving devices will continue the trend. For example, new olive groves will be machine picked.
The fact is that farmers are reducing the acreage of hand-picked, labor-intensive crops like raisins in favor of tree nuts requiring far less labor.
Also to cut costs more farm employers are letting their employees go in favor of bringing them back through labor contractors.
Overhanging the drama more produce is being imported taking away market for California-grown crops
Lastly EDD says there may be a bookkeeping issue.The farm blog Rural Migration News points to the fact that some farm accounting offices are closed, making it hard to prepare and submit employment data and difficult for EDD to contact employers who do not report employment data in a timely way.