Farm Employment Levels in Relation to Supply and Demand as per Cent of Normal

Data on farm labor supply and demand as per cent of normal were collected from farmers by the Department of Agriculture from 1918–45. No detailed study of these data has been made previously. The present analysis shows the nature of the relationship between those data and corresponding data on numbers of workers employed in Agriculture and numbers of persons available for employment. The series on supply and demand as per cent of normal seem to have reflected the farm labor situation fairly well. Supply as per cent of normal, as reported by farmers, seems to reflect the number of persons available for hire at current wage rates but not yet employed in agriculture. Reported data on demand as per cent of normal seem to reflect the number of vacant jobs that farmers were trying to fill by recruiting workers.