Big Chill for Workers : Employment: Last year’s treacherous cold snap cost 7,000 farm laborers their jobs and has had a lasting effect on those who depend on agriculture.

This week’s cold spell is only a minor concern to the unemployed farm workers who spend their days in the park in Santa Paula. They still haven’t recovered from last year’s devastating freeze.

“There is no work right now,” Arcadio Perez said as 15 other out-of-work lemon pickers looked on. “I have been going up to Bakersfield for odd jobs, but that is all.”

The freeze last December, which affected all of Ventura County’s agricultural lands, hit lemon and avocado growers hardest, especially farms in the canyons of Santa Paula and Ojai, agriculture officials said.

The Ventura County Agricultural Commission estimated that more than 7,000 farm laborers lost their jobs because of the freeze. Normally, about 15,000 people are employed picking or packing fruit or working in the fields.

While the freeze has had a lasting effect on people who depend on the farms for work, many of the Latino workers have decided to stick it out, subsisting on unemployment benefits and odd jobs. Others have moved back to their native countries to live with family members.

“My whole family lived in Santa Paula at one time,” said Rufino Vargas, a Santa Paula resident for six years. “But they had to go back to Mexico after the freeze because there is no work here.”

Still, other workers wait it out in Veterans Park, talking with friends about the grim employment situation and comparing strategies for making money.

Vincent Villa, who used to make about $1.30 a box picking lemons, has turned to collecting the empty beer cans and bottles that his friends leave in the park’s trash can. He said people tend to drink more the longer they remain jobless.

Disabled farm worker Louis Hernandez has watched many of his friends suffer through the hard times. He hopes to collect on a job-related injury that he said has forced him to live with relatives for the past year.

“They have a problem because they don’t have any work,” Hernandez said. “And they’ve got to eat, you know.”

But some growers and packinghouse officials expressed hope, saying this year’s employment opportunities will improve over last year’s as the beleaguered fruit trees bounce back.

“I think the employment opportunities will pick up a little,” said Jack Dickenson, president of Limoneira Co.

Ventura County Farm Bureau Executive Director Rex Laird said increased employment rates depend on a number of factors, including the influx of workers from areas hit hard in the San Joaquin Valley.

For those workers who need financial assistance, Laird said, a relief group that channels money from state and federal organizations can help.

The Farm Worker Freeze Committee has distributed about $325,000 in aid since January to people put out of their jobs by last year’s cold snap. Administrative assistant Al Escoto, who is organizing the group through County Supervisor Maggie Erickson Kildee’s office, said aid will continue into the new year.

“The problem is still severe,” he said.