This report draws on data from the 1997 Census of Agriculture and the 1998 Current Population Survey earnings microdata file to present information on the patterns of farm labor use and the demographic and employment characteristics of hired farmworkers in the United States. Approximately 875,000 persons 15 years of age and older did hired farmwork each week as their primary job in 1998. Almost 19 percent were employed part-time, and over a third were not U.S. citizens. An additional 63,000 people did hired farmwork each week as their secondary job. Hired farmworkers were more likely than the typical U.S. wage and salary worker to be male, Hispanic, younger, less educated, never married, and not a U.S. citizen. About 57 percent of hired farmworkers completed less than the 12th grade, compared to 14 percent of all wage and salary workers. The West and South accounted for almost three-fourths of hired farmworkers. The rate of unemployment in the hired farm labor force was more than double that for all wage and salary workers. Hired farmworkers had one of the lowest median weekly earnings and one of the largest percentages of workers with family incomes less than $20,000 in 1998. However, hired farmworkers' real median weekly earnings increased 4 percent between 1990 and 1998, while earnings for all wage and salary workers increased only 2 percent. Two appendices compare demographic and earnings characteristics of hired farmworkers and all wage and salary workers, 1990-98. (Contains 18 references, 19 tables, 25 figures, and a glossary.) (TD)