Reporting Contract Labor on the Agricultural Labor Survey

The Agricultural Labor Survey collects comprehensive information on workers hired and paid directly by U.S. farms and ranches to do agricultural work. However, it does not collect information on farm labor hired and paid through third-party contractors. In 2018, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) explored options for measuring contract labor on U.S. farms and ranches. NASS developed and tested a new survey targeting farm labor contractors, which was similar in content to the Agricultural Labor Survey. However, testing revealed it was not feasible to survey this population. An alternative solution was explored – asking farm and ranch operators to report information on their contract laborers. In the current study, five exploratory interviews were conducted to assess farm operators’ ability to report detailed information on their contract labor. The following report provides a summary of the findings from these interviews.