Richard Mines
Published: 1986
Total Pages: 112
Get eBook
The University of California and the California Employment Development Department interviewed 1,286 farmworkers throughout the state in an effort to establish an up-to-date profile. Each of EDD's 42 farmworker offices interviewed 30 workers, selected in a manner to reflect the approximate number and characteristics of field- workers involved in each office area's agriculture. Most of the 1,286 farmworkers surveyed in 1983 were immigrants: 80 percent were persons born abroad who later entered the United States. Most of these immigrants - 73 percent - were born and raised in Mexico. US. born farmworkers (20 percent) and those born in other countries (7 percent) composed the rest of the sample. The picture that emerges from this survey is that settled Mexican families do most of the state's farm work for high hourly but low annual earnings. Efforts to restructure farm jobs so that fewer workers could be employed for longer periods would alleviate employer fears of labor shortages and raise farmworker earnings.
