Forestry Job Report shoots down over inflated job figures

The Wilderness Society (Tas.) Inc
Media Release
27 June 2008

Need for further analysis of jobs involved will high conservation value forests

The report released today by CRC for Forestry proves that the job figures long used by the industry and politicians to justify ongoing logging of oldgrowth and high conservation value forests in Tasmania have been inflated, according to The Wilderness Society.
 
Despite excellent work and a detailed analysis and breakdown of jobs within different sectors of the industry, the report lacks analysis of the employment that relies on the highly controversial sector, namely the logging and woodchipping of high conservation value forests.
 
“This report shoots down the inflated figures of the industry that has long claimed over 10,000 people are directly employed by the forestry industry. Indeed, fewer than 6000 full time equivalent jobs are found across all sectors of this industry which employs only 3% of the Tasmanian labour force,” said Vica bayley, spokesperson for The Wilderness Society.
 
“These jobs include large numbers of people employed in non-controversial aspects of the industry such as processing plantation timbers and regrowth.”
 
“While this information is good and we congratulate the Australian National University for taking it on, the debate in Tasmania centers around the logging of specific, high-conservation-value forests and the jobs-poor woodchip industry.”
 
“We believe an analysis of the number of jobs reliant on the logging of high conservation value forests would reveal this is a very small percentage of the overall industry total.”
 
“A serious restructure of the forest industry in Tasmania is long overdue and the jobs argument, long used by the industry to justify the status quo, just doesn’t stack up. This report highlights that there are far fewer jobs in the industry than previously claimed,” concluded Mr Bayley.