Farm Labor Contractor
Structural exposure score derived from 2 independent sources (OpenAI "GPTs are GPTs" (human_rating_beta) + AIOE (Felten, Raj & Seamans)), each normalized against its own full reference population and combined by simple average, then converted to a percentile.
We have not ingested real-world usage data for this occupation yet. We show a band only where genuine data exists, rather than estimate one.
What a farm labor contractor actually does
Farm labor contractors recruit and hire seasonal or temporary agricultural workers on behalf of farms, orchards, and other agricultural operations, then handle the real logistics of getting that workforce onto the job: transporting workers to the correct field or facility, and often arranging housing, meals, and drinking water and sanitation facilities at the work site. Many contractors operate under the federal H-2A visa program, which requires submitting job orders to state workforce agencies, conducting good-faith recruitment of U. S.
workers first, and meeting specific wage, housing, and transportation standards the contractor is personally accountable for.
Once a crew is assembled, the contractor pays wages directly, furnishes any tools workers need, and typically employs foremen who deal directly with the crew day to day, recruiting, instructing, assigning tasks, and enforcing work rules on-site. The job blends real interpersonal recruiting and relationship management with genuine legal and regulatory compliance responsibility, since labor law, wage requirements, and worker-housing standards all attach personally to the contractor rather than to an abstract company entity.
Why it reads this way
Farm Labor Contractor scores a high 83/100 on this site's structural exposure measure, reflecting how little of the job resembles the language- and data-processing work current AI systems handle well: recruiting and hiring real workers, physically transporting them to job sites, arranging housing and sanitation facilities, and personally supervising a crew through foremen are all tasks requiring genuine human presence, judgment, and interpersonal trust.
No credible evidence was found of AI automating any part of this specific occupation, a real, disclosed absence worth noting directly rather than assuming automation risk exists just because the broader agriculture sector faces plenty of automation attention elsewhere (crop-monitoring drones, harvesting robots).
What also holds the verdict up is a genuine regulatory and legal-accountability wall: contractors operating under the federal H-2A visa program are personally responsible for meeting specific wage, housing, transportation, and sanitation standards, with real compliance obligations enforced by the Department of Labor, a level of personal legal accountability no software system can hold.
BLS designates this a Bright Outlook occupation with strong 5-6% projected growth (2024-2034), corroborating rather than substituting for the underlying structural and regulatory case, and reflecting continued reliance on the H-2A program across the agricultural sector.
Skills this role draws on
We don't yet have task-by-task time-share data for this occupation, so we can't show which specific tasks carry the exposure score above. This is the real skill set instead.
Typical salary range (USD)
$30,930–$84,050
Average: $58,460/yr
Range source: O*NET OnLine, 2025 wage data via BLS OEWS, SOC 13-1074.00 'Farm Labor Contractors'
Average source: O*NET OnLine 2025 wage data (Annual Median Wage) for Farm Labor Contractors (13-1074.00)
Related careers
Head-to-head comparisons
Farm Labor Contractor scores a high 83/100, reflecting how little of the job resembles language- or data-processing work: recruiting and hiring real workers, physically transporting them to job sites, arranging housing and sanitation, and supervising crews through foremen all require genuine human presence and judgment. No credible evidence was found of AI automating any part of this occupation, disclosed directly rather than assumed. The verdict is further backed by a genuine regulatory wall: H-2A visa program contractors are personally accountable for wage, housing, transportation, and sanitation standards enforced by the Department of Labor, a level of personal legal accountability no software can hold. BLS designates this a Bright Outlook occupation with 5-6% growth (2024-2034), as of 2026-09-21.
This is a researched judgment (checklist v1.2), not a statistical measurement — it sits alongside, not instead of, the structural exposure signal above. Next scheduled review: 2027-03-21.
Data sources & methodology
Salary data: O*NET OnLine, 2025 wage data via BLS OEWS, SOC 13-1074.00 'Farm Labor Contractors'. Min/max figures represent the 10th–90th percentile annual wage range across the United States. Average figure sourced separately: O*NET OnLine 2025 wage data (Annual Median Wage) for Farm Labor Contractors (13-1074.00).
Automation Risk Score: Based on O*NET occupational analysis (13-1074.00) evaluating task complexity, physical requirements, social intelligence, and environmental variability. Methodology based on research from Frey & Osborne (Oxford, 2017).
Growth projections: 5-6% (2024-2034), faster than the all-occupation average, a Bright Outlook occupation (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook / O*NET OnLine), based on BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.