Agricultural employment is critical to the lives of hundreds of millions of men and women across the globe as well as to the farms that employ them and the communities in which they live. However, as the agricultural transformation unfolds, workers move off the farm to jobs in an expanding food services sector, in urban areas, and abroad, with far-reaching ramifications for agricultural producers and labor markets. This chapter examines the changing role of agricultural employment in developing and developed economies. It draws from two decades of research using a wide diversity of analytical approaches to document how agricultural labor markets evolve and the impact this evolution has on workers, farmers, and rural economies. We highlight new empirical findings, emerging themes, and policy implications, including the growing concentration of off-farm agri-food employment, migration, changing gender roles, climate change and the legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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