Ten commodities accounted for most of the jobs supported by U.S. agricultural exports in 2022

Labor is essential to the production, processing, marketing, and transportation of products from farm to port. USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) annually measures this labor using an agricultural trade multiplier that estimates the employment and output effects of trade in farm and food products on the U.S. economy. In 2022, U.S. agricultural exports including biodiesel were valued at $197.4 billion and supported 1.25 million full-time jobs. On average, every $1 billion of exported U.S. agricultural products supported 6,338 jobs. Ten agricultural commodity exports supported 745,200 of the 1.25 million jobs—just under 60 percent. Soybean and corn exports alone supported more than 364,000 jobs, and bovine, chicken, and swine meat exports supported about 185,000 jobs. This chart is drawn from the ERS Agricultural Trade Multipliers, released May 2024.