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FELS
Wage & Benefit Survey Explanation of Terms Used in Survey Reports (from 2004, for pervious year's reports click here) Thanks to Sara Carrasco (California Farm Bureau Federation) for data entry and Gary Casterline (UCB College of Natural Resources) for database management and report programming. Terms used and aspects of data treatment in producing the reports are explained below. As an aid to reading the survey reports, below is an explanation of the terms used. Wage Reports: Since 2006 the survey has included questions about hiring FLCs and other contract firms for production services. In each table of wage results, statistics on wage rates for general laborers employed by these contractors are distinguished from those referring to direct employees. Below the wages table are two statistics indicating the extent of FLC use within a class of respondents: (1) the percentage of respondent firms that hire any contractors, and (2) the average share of their total labor expense that they pay for contracted work. Benefits Section: The survey form provides check-boxes only for indicating “yes”
to the question of whether employees receive each respective benefit.
The “% providing” result on these reports is calculated as
the number of respondents checking that box divided by the number of all
(N) within the crop, region, or size group specified in the report title.
Because this method treats all respondents who did not check a given benefit
box the same, whether they would have checked a "no" box or
would have simply left no entry for the item, it may understate the share
of those who actually provide each benefit.
As an aid to reading the survey tabulations, below is an explanation of the column headings: * JOB TITLES - Each job title was defined so that survey participants could enter wage rates relative to a uniform job definition. See sample survey on next page for job definitions. * RATE/ - The "Rate/" column indicates the method of pay--either by the hour or a monthly salary. * AVERAGE - The "Average" column equals the arithmetic mean of the replies. * LOWEST & HIGHEST - These columns indicate the lowest and the highest values reported. * STDEV - The standard deviation (STDEV) measures how closed individual wage rate responses are to the "Average". A small "STDEV" means that more reporting farms pay wages closer to the "Average" than when the "STDEV" is larger. * REPLIES - This indicates the number of responses reported for each job title. In the benefits section, benefits are reported as a percentage of "Yes" responses to each of the questions by year-round and seasonal employment. The column "Number" indicates the number of "yes" responses or in the case of "Ave. Number Paid Holidays", the average number of holidays. We hope you find the survey results helpful to you. Any suggestions to improve this service are welcomed. |
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