Jobless finding new work on farms

Americans doing the jobs they aren't supposed to do?

Unemployed workers are seeking jobs in fruit orchards and vegetable fields, easing farm labor shortages in the process. Farmers who struggled in recent years to find laborers report that former workers who left for higher-paying jobs in industries such as construction are coming back because of layoffs. Growers also are getting applications from first-timers who see the backbreaking seasonal work as their chance at a paycheck. "We're having a great many more applicants this year than we have had in the past," says Dan Bremer, president of AgWorks, a company that helps employers, primarily in Southern states such as Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, apply for temporary visas to hire people from other countries for the season.