States find various ways to deal with seasonal labor shortage
Seasonal worker shortages have been an issue in the last few years though, averaging roughly 25 percent to 30 percent. These shortages have resulted in a focus on higher-value and easier-to-pick-crops, as well as an increase in mechanization and other methods of boosting productivity, said Gasperini, executive vice president of the National Council of Agricultural Employers. Different states are finding different ways to deal with the situation.
Michigan needs roughly 40,000 to 45,000 temporary seasonal agriculture workers. But the domestic labor supply is trending downward and is insufficient to meet the state’s labor needs – especially during peak times, said Bob Boehm, a labor specialist with Michigan Farm Bureau.
One solution for growers, looking to lessen the impact of lower labor availability, is to join the H-2A foreign guest-worker program, which is growing in Michigan and elsewhere. Some employers are returning to traditional labor sources, such as high schools, retirees and work-release programs.
Dan Fazio, director of Wafla, a labor recruitment company, said Washington state needs approximately 80,000 seasonal workers, about 50,000 of whom are domestic. Growers in Washington are investing in automation to solve the labor shortage, Fazio said.
California – which needs roughly 470,000 seasonal specialty crop workers, according to Gasperini – will be the state to watch in the next few years. The state government enacted two pieces of legislation last year that will put farm employers in a significant bind. First came the law to gradually raise California’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022. Then came the overtime bill, which, beginning in 2019, will lower the threshold beyond which farm workers get paid overtime from 10 hours a day to eight hours a day (or 40 hours a week) by 2022.
Between the overtime and minimum wage bills, California agriculture’s production costs are going to jump significantly in the next few years, said Eric Schwartz, CEO of the United Vegetable Growers Cooperative.
Bryan Little, a labor affairs specialist with California Farm Bureau Federation, said employers and employees might try informal work-sharing arrangements. If an employee, for example, can only work 40 hours a week for one employer, he or she might turn to another employer to get those extra hours. He also mentioned mechanization. Some commodities, like strawberries and avocados, don’t lend themselves to machine harvest, but neither did pruning grapevines 10 years ago – a common practice now, Little said. “Technology can change,” he said.
source: fruitgrowersnews.com