Jobs
Oregon’s forest sector offers a wide array of employment, including work in forestry, logging, millwork, cabinetmaking, engineering, hydrology, business management and academic research. Earlier Oregon Forest Resources Institute studies have estimated that each million board feet of timber harvest creates or retains about 11 forest sector jobs.
Most of Oregon’s forest sector workers have positions related to making primary forests products. This includes pulp and paper manufacturing, sawmills and wood preservation, as well as veneer, plywood and engineered wood production. Forestry support, which includes positions in nurseries, machinery manufacturing, firefighting and logging, form the next largest labor component.
HIGHER-THAN-AVERAGE WAGES
The average annual wage for forest sector jobs in 2017 was $54,200, roughly 6 percent higher than the average annual wage of $51,100 for all Oregon employment, according to the Oregon Employment Department.
Total annual wages for Oregon’s wood products manufacturing sector have steadily increased since 2010. As of 2016, those wages totaled about $1.1 billion. In the pulp and paper sector, wages have experienced a slight downward trend during the same time period, totaling about $320 million dollars in 2016.
