American logging jobs falling by the wayside

Associated Press

GREENSBORO, Vt.

In the snowy woods of northern New England and other forested parts of the country, the lumberjack is an endangered species.

As markets for forest products change and high-tech machinery replaces chain saws, which themselves replaced the ax, a generations-old way of life is disappearing, one that historically saw fathers pass on to their sons their love and knowledge of the woods and the independence that came from working for oneself.

The arguments for not becoming a logger are solid.

For one, there’s just not as much demand for paper and other wood products because of low commodity prices and international competition, making it less secure than it once was. It’s physically and – yes – intellectually demanding work that increasingly requires special skills to run hugely expensive, high-tech machinery. And because of that machinery, capital investments needed to get started can be prohibitive.

The renaissance that farming has undergone in recent years, with an emphasis on food systems and sustainable agriculture, hasn’t brought the same energy to logging. In many quarters, loggers are still seen as despoilers of the land.

Logging entails a number of jobs, including fallers, who cut down trees by hand – essentially, lumberjacks; operators of machinery used to fell trees; and graders and scalers, who check the amount and quality of the wood.

The number of all logging workers is expected to fall only 4 percent from 2014 to 2024, from 53,700 to 51,700, according to Bureau of Labor projections.

Nationwide, the number of fallers is projected to decline 17 percent over the same period, from 8,200 in 2014 to 6,800 in 2024.

With the industry becoming more mechanized, the number of equipment operators is expected to stay about the same, with graders and scalers declining 2 percent and all other logging workers falling 7 percent.