Australia: Direct and indirect employment in the forest sector 6'5a

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Michael Stephens Sustainable Forest
Management ProjectState and International
RelationsForest IndustriesAgriculture,
Fisheries and Forestry - Australia

• Australia Direct and indirect employment in the
  forest sector (6.5a)

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Outline - Forest sector employment

• Background
• - rationale, definition, interpretation
• Capacity and issues
• - current reporting, limits, gaps
• Next steps
• - recommendations, solutions

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Rationale - 6.5a Employment

• Important measure of forests contribution in
  meeting community needs
• Socio-economic benefits (livelihood, national
  regional economies, community vitality)
• Skilled workforce provides basis for future
  growth

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Definitions - 6.5a Employment

• Direct
• 1) employment in wood industries (forestry and
  logging, wood and paper manufacturing)
• 2) forest contact industries (e.g. beekeeping,
  eco-tourism, reserve management)
• Indirect
• 3) Other jobs generated as a result of direct
  forest employment (i.e. multiplier effects)
• - generated in other sectors (materials,
  services etc)
• - employees spending in local economies (retail
  etc)

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(No Transcript)
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Regional employment
Timber harvesting
Hardwood sawmill
Tourism and recreation
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Regional framework phased approach

• Category A - largely implementable now
• Category B - require further development (3-5
  yrs)
• Category C - require long term RD (gt 5 yrs)
• Direct (wood industries) ? A
• Direct (forest contact) ? B
• Indirect ? B

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Direct employment

• Central agency collection
• - Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
• - Manufacturing, Labour Force surveys (annual)
• Advantages reliable, cost-effective, good for
  wood based industries
• Issues industry classifications too aggregated
  for forest contact industries (e.g. tourism
  as whole sector)

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Direct employment (wood industries)

• Industry classification (98-99) (000 employees)
• Forestry and logging 14.10
• Sawmilling and timber dressing 12.50
• Manufactured wood products 30.90
• Paper and paper products 17.30
• Total (wood industries) 74.80
• Total (all industries) 8545
• available at State/Territory and Local boundaries
• trend data from annual surveys
• can represent as forest dependency maps ()

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Direct employment (contact industries)

• Agency level collection, industry sources
• - usually grazing, eco-tourism and beekeeping
• - non wood forest products (e.g. wildflowers)
• Methods
• - direct industry surveys, permits and licences
• Issues
• - data tends to be ad hoc and inconsistent
• - not systematically collected, field office
  records

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RFAs have resulted in improved data

• Long term agreements (20 years) between
  governments, 10 regions
• World class forest reserve system
• Industry certainty (land use zoning)
• Comprehensive economic and social assessments
• ? regional employment data (wood contact)
• ? direct surveys of forest sector, cluster
  analysis
• ? 5 yearly monitoring (sustainability indicators)

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Direct employment (contact industries)

• New South Wales (employees)
• Growing/managing 1404
• Harvesting and haulage 1027
• Primary processing (raw timber) 4577
• Apiary 356
• Grazing 123
• Eco-tourism 56
• Other (misc) 567
• Total 8110
• draws on licence/permit data and RFA assessments
• some discrepancies with ABS (wood industries)

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Indirect employment (methods)

• General equilibrium (GE) models
• - capture price and output effects of economy
• - competitive markets/sectors (supply demand)
• Advantages capture full economy linkages, useful
  for national and broad inter-region analysis
• Issues models require specialist knowledge,
  data inputs from central agencies, large
  cost ()

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Indirect employment (GE estimates)

• Monash MRF-For Model
• - able to modify existing model (Monash
  university)
• - 8 regions, 27 commodities/sectors (1996-97)
• - price elasticities and shares (capital-output
  ratios)
• - disaggregated forest sector with RFA data
• Simulated change in forest output used to
  identify employment multiplier (all sectors)
• Percentage change in labour costs converted to
  employment numbers/persons

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Indirect employment (GE estimates)
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Indirect employment (GE estimates)
Total wood industries State National New South
Wales 1.88 2.72 Victoria 1.80 2.79 Queenslan
d 1.64 2.31 South Australia 1.65 2.86 Wester
n Australia 1.67 2.38 Tasmania 1.44 2.24
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Indirect employment (methods)

• Input-output analyses
• - matrix of inputs and outputs between sectors
• - empirical data to calculate employment
  coefficients
• (surveys or derive from other sources)
• Advantages useful for regional and local
  analysis,
• less complex than GE models
• Issues snapshot of economy at point in time,
  survey vs non survey techniques, may
  overestimate (no price effects)
• Used in many local regions (where forest
  dependant)

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Next steps

• Direct employment
• use central agency collection (ABS) as most
  reliable source of data for wood based industries
• improve coverage of central agency industry
  classifications to better capture forest contact
  industries
• investigate periodic surveys of forest contact
  industries, through better
• - targeting of industry associations, groups
• - database management of public licences/permits
  

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Next steps

• Indirect employment
• continue to use GE models (Monash MRF-For) for
  national and state level multipliers
• update GE models and multipliers whenever
  significant structural change occurs in forest
  sector
• Rely on input-output analyses to monitor regional
  or local level multipliers, where communities are
  forest dependant
• Direct and indirect employment
• policy commitment to monitor over time through
  RFA reviews (five yearly)

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Other country issues

• Ethnicity (social groups) ?
• Indirect employment ?