Greenhouse floriculture is a labor-intensive part of U.S. horticulture. In 2024, U.S. floriculture operations with hired workers totaled 7,535, while the broader nursery, greenhouse, and floriculture industry recorded $7.1 billion in labor expenses in 2022. The figures below describe the size of the business, the workers it supports, and the longer-term employment context.
Contents
- 2024 floriculture employment footprint
- State-level hired-worker counts
- Labor scale in nursery, greenhouse, and floriculture production
- How labor costs have changed
- The broader crop-production workforce
- Crop-production employment outlook
2024 floriculture employment footprint
The USDA’s 2024 Floriculture Crops report counted 11,262 U.S. floriculture producers in 2024, compared with 10,216 in 2023. The report’s published group of 28 floriculture states accounted for 9,456 producers in 2024 and 8,887 in 2023. These are producer counts, not a count of individual employees.
The clearest direct employment measure in the report is the number of operations with hired workers. U.S. floriculture operations with hired workers totaled 7,535 in 2024. USDA reported that this was a 15% increase from 2023. The average peak number of workers per operation was 15 in 2024, down from 16 in 2023. “Peak” describes the seasonal high point rather than an annual average workforce.
Production capacity also expanded during the same comparison. Covered floriculture production area reached 969 million square feet in 2024, compared with 851 million square feet in 2023. The 2024 U.S. floriculture survey reported $6.71 billion in total crop sales. Together, these figures show a sector with thousands of employing operations, substantial covered growing space, and a large sales base, while still requiring care when comparing operations with workers to total producers.
| USDA floriculture measure | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| All U.S. producers | 10,216 | 11,262 |
| Producers in 28 published states | 8,887 | 9,456 |
| Operations with hired workers | Not stated in supplied figures | 7,535 |
| Average peak workers per operation | 16 | 15 |
| Covered production area | 851 million sq. ft. | 969 million sq. ft. |
The producer and area figures come from the USDA’s 2024 Floriculture Crops. The 2023 operations-with-hired-workers count was not stated in the supplied figures; the report does state the 15% increase from 2023 to 2024.
State-level hired-worker counts
The USDA’s Table 41. Horticultural Production Expenses, Returns and Allowances, and of Number Hired Workers: 2024 provides state-level counts for horticultural operations. These counts are relevant to greenhouse floriculture, but the table is for horticultural operations and should not be read as a floriculture-only employment series.
North Carolina reported 705,163 hired workers in 2024, the largest count among the states listed in the supplied figures. North Dakota reported 168,639. Ohio reported 33,432, followed by Oklahoma with 18,712 and Oregon with 18,395. Pennsylvania reported 10,575 hired workers.
The differences between these counts are substantial, but they do not by themselves establish that one state has more greenhouse floriculture jobs than another. The table’s horticultural scope is broader, and the counts are not presented here as full-time-equivalent employment or as an annual average. They are best used as a picture of the scale of hired labor reported by horticultural operations in each state.
| State | Hired workers reported in 2024 |
|---|---|
| North Carolina | 705,163 |
| North Dakota | 168,639 |
| Ohio | 33,432 |
| Oklahoma | 18,712 |
| Oregon | 18,395 |
| Pennsylvania | 10,575 |
Because these state figures come from a horticultural table rather than the national floriculture highlights report, they complement—but do not replace—the national measure of 7,535 floriculture operations with hired workers.
Labor scale in nursery, greenhouse, and floriculture production
USDA Economic Research Service analysis in Farm Labor Expenses: Evidence from the 1997–2022 Census of Agriculture Data groups nursery, greenhouse, and floriculture production under NAICS 1114. For 2022, NAICS 1114 recorded $7.1 billion in labor expenses and $21.8 billion in agricultural-product sales.
Labor expenses represented 13.8% of U.S. agricultural labor expenses in 2022. The industry represented 4.0% of U.S. agricultural-product sales. Within NAICS 1114, labor expenses equaled 32.8% of agricultural-product sales. Labor also accounted for 42.5% of total production expenses.
That 42.5% share placed NAICS 1114 first among the listed agricultural industries in the USDA ERS comparison by labor share of total production expenses in 2022. The comparison helps explain why employment statistics are especially important for greenhouse and floriculture businesses: labor is not a peripheral cost in this classification. It is a major part of the production model.
The two percentages answer different questions. The 32.8% figure compares labor expenses with sales. The 42.5% figure compares labor expenses with total production expenses. Neither percentage is an employee share, wage rate, or measure of the number of jobs at a typical operation.
How labor costs have changed
The USDA ERS historical series shows that labor remained a large share of production expenses in NAICS 1114 from 1997 through 2022. Labor accounted for 43.8% of total production expenses in 1997, 41.5% in 2002, 40.1% in 2007, 40.4% in 2012, 43.0% in 2017, and 42.5% in 2022.
| Census year | Labor share of total production expenses | Labor expenses as share of sales |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | 43.8% | 28.2% |
| 2002 | 41.5% | 28.9% |
| 2007 | 40.1% | 29.5% |
| 2012 | 40.4% | 31.6% |
| 2017 | 43.0% | 32.6% |
| 2022 | 42.5% | 32.8% |
The second measure—labor expenses as a share of sales—was 28.2% in 1997, 28.9% in 2002, 29.5% in 2007, 31.6% in 2012, 32.6% in 2017, and 32.8% in 2022. The supplied series therefore shows a higher labor-to-sales share in 2022 than in 1997, while the labor share of total production expenses remained within a relatively narrow range across the reported census years.
These are historical expense ratios for NAICS 1114. They should not be interpreted as a forecast of wages, a projection of staffing needs, or a direct estimate for every greenhouse or floral business.
The broader crop-production workforce
The Bureau of Labor Statistics table on employed persons by detailed industry, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity reported an annual-average U.S. crop-production workforce of 1,214,000 employed people in 2024. Crop production is broader than greenhouse floriculture, so these figures provide context rather than a direct count of floriculture employees.
Women represented 29.3% of employed people in U.S. crop production in 2024. White workers represented 92.3%, Black or African American workers 2.6%, and Asian workers 1.4%. Hispanic or Latino workers represented 30.0%. The race and Hispanic-or-Latino measures describe separate characteristics and should not be added together as mutually exclusive categories.
The BLS table on employed persons by detailed industry and age reported the following 2024 annual-average crop-production counts by age: 51,000 workers aged 16–19; 84,000 aged 20–24; 201,000 aged 25–34; 244,000 aged 35–44; 214,000 aged 45–54; 205,000 aged 55–64; and 215,000 aged 65 and over. The median age of U.S. crop-production workers was 46.4 years.
This age distribution places the greenhouse floriculture sector within a workforce context that includes both younger entrants and substantial numbers of workers aged 55 and over. Because the BLS figures cover crop production, they do not identify how many people in each age or demographic group work specifically in greenhouses or floriculture.
Crop-production employment outlook
For a forward-looking benchmark, BLS Table 2.11, Employment and output by industry, 2025 and projected 2035 estimated 864,300 U.S. crop-production jobs in 2025. BLS projects 890,200 jobs in 2035, an increase of 25,900 jobs over the period.
The projected growth rate is 3.0% from 2025 to 2035, with a compound annual rate of employment change of 0.3%. These are BLS estimates and projections for crop production, not a greenhouse-floriculture-only forecast. They also describe employment levels at the industry level rather than the number of seasonal peak workers at individual operations.
| BLS crop-production measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Estimated employment, 2025 | 864,300 jobs |
| Projected employment, 2035 | 890,200 jobs |
| Projected change, 2025–2035 | 25,900 jobs |
| Projected growth, 2025–2035 | 3.0% |
| Compound annual rate of change | 0.3% |
Taken together with the USDA floriculture figures, the outlook distinguishes three different measurements: floriculture operations and peak staffing in 2024, historical labor expenses through 2022, and BLS crop-production employment projections through 2035. Keeping those scopes and periods separate is essential when using employment statistics to understand greenhouse floriculture.