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The California agricultural sector generates significant employment, accounting for an average of 420,000 workers engaged in agricultural and livestock activities in 2017, an increase from approximately 370,000 workers in 2005. The great majority (83%) of those workers earned their income from farm employment only (Martin et al., 2017). The California agricultural labor force is aging, with an average age of 38 years old, drawing from families that often include both second‐generation US citizens as well as others who are undocumented or unauthorized to work in the US (Martin et al., 2017). Despite increased mechanization trends for some California‐produced crops, employment in the sector is increasing due to rising production of labor‐intensive crops, mainly berries, over the last two decades (Khan et al., 2004; Martin et al., 2017). This increase has more than offset the decline in production of peaches, apples, and related crops.

Because of the 2008–2009 recession and the new reality of the Trump administration immigration policies, the flow of new migrant labor into the agricultural sector has slowed. Farmers have had adapt to current labor shortages and the prospect of these shortages could persist in the long term. Some of the responses observed include not only higher wages but also the provision of benefits that, although perhaps not comparable to other economic activities of the diversified California economy, constitute an improvement in employment practices on the part of farmers. However, mechanization, such as the adoption of hydraulic platforms on fruit and tree nut farms, has resulted in underemployment, with the consequent decreases in household income for some. We note that the work presented in later sections of this chapter concentrate on harvesting activities and that the harvesting labor force is mostly temporary as workers seek jobs in the areas where they live and/or move across the state to seek jobs harvesting crops. Nevertheless, worker mobility has declined substantially.