Examining the Growth in Seasonal Agricultural H-2A Labor

The H-2A Agricultural Guest Worker program allows U.S. agricultural employers to hire foreign workers on a temporary or seasonal basis. Many U.S. producers of labor-intensive commodities appear to be adjusting to tighter farm labor markets by employing H-2A workers. The program rapidly expanded over the last decade, increasing from 79,000 H-2A workers in 2010 to 258,000 in 2019. All sectors and most regions of the United States have experienced significant growth in H-2A employment, but the increase is most pronounced in sectors with high labor requirements and seasonal employment, i.e., fruit and tree nuts and vegetables and melons. H-2A growth is uneven across the United States with larger employment changes in the Southeast than in other regions. Farm labor contractors (brokers that directly employ farmworkers and lease their services to farms) account for a growing share of H-2A employment. This report explores how H-2A usage levels differ by agricultural sector, across geography, and the type of firm requesting the workers. The analyses in this study can provide a benchmark to measure future changes in H-2A labor use