Orchard Worker

Anticipated period of employment: 08/05/2024 to 11/16/2024 All applicants must have 3 months experience hand harvesting a perishable crop. Applicants must be able to furnish affirmative job references from recent employers. Apples: Workers will manually plant and cultivate apples; use hand tools, such as shovels, trowels, hoes, tampers, pruning hooks, shears and knives. Duties include tilling soil, transplanting, weeding, thinning, pruning, and picking. Prune trees seasonally to promote optimum growth of tree and fruit. Gather pruned branches from area for disposal. Perform pruning and suckering by cutting terminal growth and water sprouts from inside of tree using hand pruner. Thins trees from orchard to eliminate diseased or nonproductive trees using chain saw. Trim leaves from trees. Workers will make sure bins are clean and free of debris before placing harvested apples into the bins. Worker places ladder firmly against or within tree in a secure position so as not to break limbs or knock off fruit and to prevent slipping or falling. All fruit is to be handled with care to avoid bruising. Fruit injured by bruising during picking shall not exceed 1% (WNY) for fresh and 1% (WNY) for processing. Each worker's picked fruit will be inspected according to instructions given each day by the orchard foreman. Workers will be directed to strip all fruit from tree at one picking or to spot pick (selective picking) according to size and color depending on crop conditions and state of maturity. Fruit picked as drops is never mixed with tree fruit See ETA 790/790A for a complete job description. Only workers meeting all qualifications on the job order should be referred by the Job Service Office. Interested candidates must contact their local employment office to receive a copy of the job order (ETA 790/790A) and applicable attachments. Once the applicant has a copy of the job contract they may call and/or email the employer to schedule an interview Monday- Friday from 9am to 5pm and referred to NY1499779 as the JO is in connection with this NJ number. See AOSOS comment section before making any referrals.

Created: 2024-11-02