A Research on Work Satisfaction of Forest Workers

Abstract

Forestry works have an important work branch in the Eastern Black Sea Region because of the wealth of forested areas, the multiplicity of forest villages, the intense forestry activities and the lack of different income sources of forest villagers. Therefore, forestry activities are one of the main industries for forest villagers to prevent unemployment and to reduce income imbalance between different regions. Forestry activities differ from other sectors because of work difficulty, hard working conditions, limited time, temporary work, low revenue and legal dimension of work. Harvesting works should be done by forest villagers in accordance with article 40 of Forest Law. The analysis of the socio-economic structure of a community is important both in giving photographs of the current period and in presenting the transformations of working class dynamics over time. In this study, the relationship between the demographic features of forest workers and work satisfaction was examined. Within the scope of the study, a questionnaire including questions about personal characteristics, family structures, economic incomes and work satisfaction was applied to the workers. As a result, it was determined that 35.83% of all workers were between 31 and 40 ages and primary school (35%). In addition, forest workers had no income sources except for forest (77.5%), and most of the workers were the livelihoods of their families (81.4%) and working for 6-8 hours. Most of them are satisfied with forest workers (65.83%), and the main reasons for not being satisfied were determined as low income, lack of social security and difficult working conditions (18.33%).