Celebrate American Jobs During National Forest Products Week

As champions of America’s forest products industry, Forest2Market is proud to support National Forest Products Week from October 18 - 24. Forest sector jobs provide an important contribution to many economies in the U.S. South, Northeast, Midwest and Pacific Northwest, especially in rural areas. Forest2Market estimates that the forest products industry employed over 1.3 million Americans nationwide in 2013 with an average annual payroll expenditure of around $47,314 per person[1]. Approximately 63% of forest products jobs were in the paper and wood product manufacturing industries.

Forestry, logging and related activities employed nearly 87,000 Americans in 2013 with an average wage of around $40,000 per employee. Forestry and logging are the backbone upon which other forest products industries, including paper, wood products, furniture manufacturing and paper and lumber wholesaling are built. 

From the packaging that protects our items during shipment, to the notebooks used by schoolchildren and the bathroom tissue that keeps us comfortably dry, paper products are a daily staple for many Americans. Paper manufacturing employed approximately 430,000 Americans in 2013 with payroll expenditures of around $57,000 per employee.

Solid and engineered wood products are a major component of American homes: Approximately 93% of new single-family homes and 86% of multifamily homes constructed in 2014 used wood framing[2]. Wood product manufacturing industries employed nearly 421,000 Americans and paid nearly $38,000 in wages in 2013. Wood furniture manufacturing industries employed over 171,000 Americans in 2013 and paid just over $38,000 on average.

Last but not least, paper, lumber and wood product merchant wholesalers employed over 240,000 Americans in 2013 with an average payroll of over $55,000 per employee.

While not included here, bioenergy, biofuel and biochemical production are a growing part of American life. Wood and other biomass was the source of 8% of the renewable energy generated in 2012 and is projected to increase to 10% of renewable energy production by 2040[3].

This is Part 1 of a multi-part series covering the economic impacts of forest sector jobs. Part 2 will take a deeper look at logging capacity across several geographic regions.

Interested in analyses in your area? Need to know more about the indirect and induced impacts of forestry-related industries? F2M can provide direct, indirect and induced job and wage data at the county level aggregated to any geographic region of your choice (e.g. state, region or a custom area). As an example, see http://data.workingforests.org/. For more information, contact Peter Coutu, Director of North American Sales, at peter.coutu@forest2market.com or 1-980-233-4027.

[1] Source: F2M calculations, U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[2] Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

[3] Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration.