Abstract
This study analyzed logging industry employment and profitability in recent decades in the U.S. based on Occupational Employment Statistics (OES), Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI), Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), and Timber Product Output (TPO) Reports. The logging industry in the U.S. has experienced reduced employment with an aging workforce over the past two decades. The changes might be related to increased productivity from mechanization, combined with reduced demand for logging, but estimates of capital and labor productivity for logging are not available. To overcome the data limitation, a simple and cost-effective economic model, Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) Model, was applied to estimate the profitability of the entire industry at a state level. It was found that the reduced demand and increased operating costs led to poor profitability and a wave of closures of logging firms but also accelerated the adjustment in the logging industry. Serious challenges facing the forestry sector include the lack of an effective monitoring tool for the logging industry, structural shortage of logging labor, and rising operating costs.
Highlights
With technological advancements, policy changes, parcelization of forestland, business cycles, and the change of relative costs of factors, the labor force of the logging industry in the world has undergone dramatic changes in the past few decades [1,2,3,4,5], especially in the U.S [6]
Declining employment is a problem endemic to the logging industry and experienced in all industrialized countries [52], such as Canada [2] and Europe [3] with a similar situation in the U.S The regional employment declined from 1997 to 2017, and employment in the whole country fell at an annual rate of 2.0% [38]
While it appears the declining employment resulted from the unavailability of newly hired workers [14], the more fundamental cause can be technological advancement represented by mechanization and the decline in the demand for logging production
Summary
Policy changes, parcelization of forestland, business cycles, and the change of relative costs of factors, the labor force of the logging industry in the world has undergone dramatic changes in the past few decades [1,2,3,4,5], especially in the U.S [6]. The employment decline was likely related to the change in the age distribution of the loggers [7,8]. Survey results from various studies have indicated an increase in the mean and median age of logging business owners and employees [9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. The logging industry in Canada is facing a similar situation [16]. These authors discuss the importance of the age imbalance in logging, and many U.S industries face an aging workforce as the Baby Boomer generation nears the retirement age [17,18,19,20]
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