A Study on the Assessment of Standard Wage System for Forestry Workers in Korea

Abstract

Working in the forest would require a wide range of skills and experience for specific tasks which involve with a high level of risks to worker's safety. However, there has been a concern on the current standard wage system for forest workers because it does not effectively reflect the characteristics of typical working conditions in the forest. In addition, the current standard wages for forestry workers was estimated based on the construction industry's wage system. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to assess a current wage system through the mail survey method and to develop a new wage system for forest worker which effectively reflects skill sets and experience required for successful completion of the work in the forest. We mailed the survey questionnaire consisting of 19 questions to 659 forest workers and received 188 responses resulting in a 28.5% response rate. The results showed that the current average optimal wages of forest worker, special worker and feller were 97,680won/day, 127,559won/day and 152,403won/day, respectively though there were variations depending on the regions. In developing the new standard wage system, this study suggest the current work types(worker, special worker and feller) could be divided into 5 work types (forest-environment workers, forest operations in beginner, forest operations in intermediate, forest operations in advanced and forest equipment operator) reflecting specialty of forest operation thereby stabilizing the new wage system for forest workers.