Verité research has found that the use of labor brokers (including village-level agents, recruiters, labor contractors, and crew leaders) is widespread throughout the Latin American coffee sector, including in Brazil.
Despite the growing awareness of, and commitments to, ethical recruitment, an analysis of CUMULUS data from early 2019 to the present reveals that less than five percent of employers fully absorb the true cost of cross border recruitment, including all recruitment fees and related costs. Instead, those costs continue to be passed on to foreign migrant workers.