FOREST ECONOMICS
Workforce & Employment Research
Forestry workers and businesses are a critical component of the forest industry, providing the labor and expertise to produce goods and manage our natural resources. Understanding the capacity to meet current and future demands and the barriers and challenges forestry businesses face are essential to maintaining a strong industry across all segments of the supply chain. The BBER also tracks the economic contribution of the industry at the state and regional level.
Workforce
The Forest Industry Research Program has been working with the USDA Forest Service in Montana and Washington to help the agency meet the monitoring requirements of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP). Below you will find reports and other publications describing the findings from these monitoring efforts:
Northeast Washington Forest Vision 2020 CFLRP (WA):
Measuring the Benefits of the CFLRP Appendices (2016)
Measuring the Benefits of the CFLRP Map Set (2016)
Infographic: Are Forest Restoration Investments Benefiting Local Communities Most in Need? (2015)
Southwestern Crown of the Continent CFLRP (MT):
Local Contractor Participation in the Southwestern Crown of the Continent CFLRP, Montana (2013)
Forest Management Capacity in the Southwest Crown of the Continent, Montana (Poster) (2013)
Employment
To better understand the economic and employment impacts of natural resource management activities, the Bureau has partnered with the USDA Forest Service to quantify the employment and wage impacts of timber harvesting activities.
The Impact of Timber Harvest Declines on the Ravalli County Economy (2018)
Employment and Wage Impacts of Timber Harvesting and Processing in the United States, Journal of Forestry (Vol. 113 No. 4, 2016)
Employment and Labor Income Direct Response Coefficients for the US Forest Products Industry (2008)
Employment- and Wage-Consumption Ratios for Montana's Forest Products Manufacturers, Western Journal of Forestry (Vol. 8 No. 2, 1993)
Related Research
A similar effort to quantify the economic and employment impacts of restoration activities has been conducted by the Ecosystem Workforce Program at the University of Oregon and can be found here: http://ewp.uoregon.edu/economy.
