There were 1,122,000 hired workers on the nation's farms and ranches during the week of Oct. 7-13, up 3% from a year ago. Of these hired workers, 806,000 workers were hired directly by farm operators. Ag service employees on farms and ranches made up the remaining 316,000 workers.

Farm operators paid their hired workers an average wage of $10.33/hour during the October 2007 reference week, up 37¢ from a year earlier.

Field workers received an average of $9.62/hour, up 36¢ from last October, while livestock workers earned $9.98/hour compared with $9.42 a year earlier. The field and livestock worker combined wage rate at $9.72/hour was up 42¢ from last year. The number of hours worked averaged 42.1 hours for hired workers during the survey week, up fractionally from a year ago.