Updated at 9:36 a.m., Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Farm jobs total 6,600 in April, down 3% from year ago
Advertiser Staff
The number of workers in Hawai'i's agricultural sector totaled 6,600 during the week of April 8-14, down 3 percent from the same week a year earlier, according to a report from the local office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service.Diversified agriculture accounted for 82 percent of all farm labor at 5,400 workers, up 2 percent from the same week a year earlier, according to the report.
Pineapple and sugarcane workers totaled 1,200, excluding mill and cannery workers, down 20 percent from a year earlier. Many of those job losses were the result of Del Monte's decision to shut down its O'ahu pineapple operations last year, a move that eliminated 551 jobs.
The average wage paid to all hired workers during the April survey was a record-high $12.85 an hour, up 89 cents an hour from April 2006. The average wage for field and livestock workers also reached a new record high at $10.77, up 84 cents an hour from a year earlier.
