The Idaho logging and wood products industries struggle with volatile prices and a sharply reduced amount of timber available for harvest on federal lands compared with a generation ago. But Idaho wood is still a moneymaker, and recent trend lines are mostly positive, said Philip Cook, research scientist for the Policy Analysis Group at the University of Idaho.
“Like any industry, it faces challenges,” Cook said. “But it’s tended to be a steady industry and a steady part of Idaho’s economy, and it should continue to be.”
Employment in logging, wood product manufacturing and supporting industries rose from fewer than 10,000 Idahoans in 2010 to nearly 12,000 in 2014, according to the University of Idaho. Rising housing starts after the Great Recession led to boosts in lumber prices and timber harvests, supporting more than 600 timber-related businesses in the state and 255 manufacturing operations in 2012, according to the Idaho Forest Products Commission.
Forestry and logging jobs paid an average of about $51,000 per year in 2014, a U of I report said. Wood-products manufacturing paid nearly $50,000 and paper manufacturing $83,000. All bested Idaho’s 2014 average wage of $37,957.
Idaho has 21.4 million acres of forest land, including 17 million acres of harvestable timber. While the U.S. Forest Service manages nearly half of all land in Idaho, and more than three-fourths of all timberlands, only one-tenth of the state’s timber comes from federal lands. Policy changes in the 1990s have made it difficult for loggers to contract federal land to harvest, increasing the time and paperwork needed to secure timber contracts. Most Idaho timber is felled on land owned by companies such as Potlatch Corp. and Idaho Forest Group.
From the Idaho Statesman: https://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/10/15/4037486_idaho-logging-wood-product-and.html?rh=1