Farming jobs being picked clean by US residents

"A lot of the American workers are now applying for farm jobs that maybe they may not have applied for in the past," said Olga Ruiz, state monitor advocate with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. "People who started out in agriculture or even field labor who got out of that field maybe went into construction or other types of work, who maybe got laid off for whatever reason, decided they wanted to go back to farm work, because it's a paycheck and they need it."

Condon posted two farm hand positions on Craigslist in April. He said he had to turn people away. Thirty-eight people applied.

"We had people with doctorates, we had people with masters degrees we had people with all sorts of different career backgrounds," he said. "Carpenters, people who've worked on farms in other countries, people who have managed museums, all sorts of things you would never suspect you would find on a farm labor application."