Farm Labor Contractors

Farm Labor Contractors (SOC 13-1074) earn a median $58,460 a year ($28.11 an hour) in the United States, with 310 employed as of May 2025; the highest-paying state is California.

What farm labor contractors do

Farm labor contractors find, hire, and furnish short-term and seasonal field labor to farms and growers. Their clients need seasonal or temporary agricultural laborers, and recruiting and hiring those laborers is what the contractor does. Their duties include recruiting and hiring workers, paying their wages, and hiring foremen or crew leaders who deal directly with the workers on the job. Contractors may also transport and house the crews, and they provide food, drinking water, and field sanitation facilities and furnish tools for employee use. The occupation is separate from farmworkers and laborers, who perform the picking and planting, and from agricultural managers, who run a farm. It also differs from human resources specialists, who recruit for a single employer's workforce. Contractors also supervise the work of the employees they place, and the titles O*NET lists include farm contractor and farm crew leader.

Typical entry: O*NET respondents most often report less than a high school diploma as the typical level of education for this occupation.

Also called: Farm Contractor, Farm Crew Leader, Farm Crew Member, Farm Labor Contractor, Farm Sanitation Employee.

National wage percentiles, May 2025

Farm Labor Contractors: US hourly and annual wage percentiles, mean and employment, May 2025
Area	Basis	Percentile wage					Mean	Employment
Area	Basis	10th	25th	Median	75th	90th	Mean	Employment
United States	Hourly	$14.87	$17.17	$28.11	$38.27	$40.41	$28.11	310
United States	Annual	$30,930	$35,720	$58,460	$79,590	$84,050	$58,470	310

Annual wage at the 10th, 25th, 50th (median), 75th and 90th percentiles. The same numbers are in the table above.

Employment per 1,000 jobs and the location quotient are area measures; they appear in the state and metro tables below. To see what a wage in this range leaves after tax, use FastCalc's take-home pay calculator.

Where farm labor contractors earn and work most

Five highest-paying states

Farm Labor Contractors: the five states with the highest median wage, May 2025
Area	Basis	Percentile wage					Mean	Employment	Jobs per 1,000	Location quotient
Area	Basis	10th	25th	Median	75th	90th	Mean	Employment	Jobs per 1,000	Location quotient
California	Hourly	$22.65	$32.19	$41.21	$50.35	$51.86	$39.72	**	**	**
California	Annual	$47,110	$66,960	$85,710	$104,740	$107,880	$82,610	**	**	**
Florida	Hourly	$35.13	$36.78	$38.27	$38.51	$38.83	$37.72	**	**	**
Florida	Annual	$73,070	$76,500	$79,590	$80,100	$80,760	$78,460	**	**	**
Minnesota	Hourly	$14.68	$23.87	$24.39	$28.74	$29.37	$24.31	**	**	**
Minnesota	Annual	$30,540	$49,640	$50,730	$59,780	$61,080	$50,570	**	**	**

Five states with the most jobs

Farm Labor Contractors: the five states with the highest employment, May 2025
Area	Basis	Percentile wage					Mean	Employment	Jobs per 1,000	Location quotient
Area	Basis	10th	25th	Median	75th	90th	Mean	Employment	Jobs per 1,000	Location quotient

Five highest-paying metropolitan areas

Farm Labor Contractors: the five metropolitan areas with the highest median wage, May 2025
Area	Basis	Percentile wage					Mean	Employment	Jobs per 1,000	Location quotient
Area	Basis	10th	25th	Median	75th	90th	Mean	Employment	Jobs per 1,000	Location quotient

Five metropolitan areas with the most jobs

Farm Labor Contractors: the five metropolitan areas with the highest employment, May 2025
Area	Basis	Percentile wage					Mean	Employment	Jobs per 1,000	Location quotient
Area	Basis	10th	25th	Median	75th	90th	Mean	Employment	Jobs per 1,000	Location quotient

Published medians, May 2021 to May 2025

BLS published a median annual wage of $47,770 for farm labor contractors in May 2021 and $58,460 in May 2025, with employment of 440 and 310.

Farm Labor Contractors: median annual wage, median hourly wage and employment in each OEWS May release, United States, as published
Release	Median annual	Median hourly	Employment
May 2021	$47,770	$22.97	440
May 2022	$49,330	$23.72	550
May 2023	$45,730	$21.98	460
May 2024	$48,690	$23.41	410
May 2025	$58,460	$28.11	310

Median annual wage in each release, as published; a release without a published median has no point. The same numbers are in the table above.

BLS does not design OEWS as a time series: each release pools three years of samples, and occupational classifications, area definitions and estimation methods change between releases, so a difference between two releases is not a measure of change over time. The figures are shown as published, side by side, and nothing is computed from them. See how often OEWS is updated.

Every state, by median wage

3 states and DC publish a row for this occupation. A linked state has its own page with the within-state metro table and comparison; the others appear here only.

Rank	State	Median hourly	Median annual	10th pct (annual)	90th pct (annual)	Employment	Jobs per 1,000	Location quotient
1	California profile	$41.21	$85,710	$47,110	$107,880	**	**	**
2	Florida profile	$38.27	$79,590	$73,070	$80,760	**	**	**
3	Minnesota profile	$24.39	$50,730	$30,540	$61,080	**	**	**

Occupations in the same SOC broad group (13-1070), with their national median annual wage.

Part of Business and Financial Operations Occupations. Compare any area in the wage explorer.

Source and notes

Data: BLS OEWS May 2025, released 2026-05-15. Cross-industry estimates, all ownerships. BLS page: OEWS 13-1074 Farm Labor Contractors.

**: Employment estimate not available.

Annual wages assume 2,080 hours a year at the hourly rate; occupations BLS publishes on one basis only show an en dash (–) on the other.
Employment is rounded to the nearest 10 by BLS. Where BLS withholds a cell, nothing is estimated in its place.
Published medians: national_M2021_dl.xlsx to national_M2024_dl.xlsx in oesm21nat.zip to oesm24nat.zip (BLS OEWS May 2021 to May 2024, national, cross-industry, all ownerships) and the May 2025 spine. Each release is shown as published; nothing is computed between them.

Sources

BLS Standard Occupational Classification 2018, definition of 13-1074, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (public domain).
O*NET 30.1 Database, 13-1074.00, National Center for O*NET Development, USDOL/ETA (CC BY 4.0).
OEWS May 2021 national estimates (oesm21nat.zip), US Bureau of Labor Statistics (public domain).
OEWS May 2022 national estimates (oesm22nat.zip), US Bureau of Labor Statistics (public domain).
OEWS May 2023 national estimates (oesm23nat.zip), US Bureau of Labor Statistics (public domain).
OEWS May 2024 national estimates (oesm24nat.zip), US Bureau of Labor Statistics (public domain).
OEWS May 2025 national estimates (oesm25nat.zip), the site's data spine, US Bureau of Labor Statistics (public domain).

Includes information from O*NET 30.1 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, used under the CC BY 4.0 license.

Description written 2026-10-17 in our own words from the sources above.