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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Ax Men: Jobs in Oregon’s Forestry and Logging Industry

Ax Men is a non-fiction series on the History Channel about the trecherous life of Pacific Northwest timbercutters. The show follows two logging companies from Oregon, two from Washington, and one from Montana. Mike Pihl, owner of one of the Oregon companies, was recently interviewed in an article detailing wage and employment trends in Oregon's forestry and logging industry.

"Our biggest challenge right now is just finding work," says Pihl. With log prices low, lumber mill closures statewide, and inventories high, they are knocking on doors looking for business.

In 2006, the 15 highest paid occupations in the industry employed roughly 7,600 people and paid annual wages ranging from $39,425 to $102,716.
Despite the industry's grim outlook, Mike Pihl finds the work very rewarding and would encourage others to explore logging as a career: "Each job site provides new challenges and there is a lot of variety to the work, unlike sitting in a cubicle all day. There's nothing like completing a job well done, seeing a nice replanted property and creating a happy land owner. Our goal is to get things done right, as safely as possible and create jobs with wages high enough to support a family."
Check out the full text of the article, written by Shawna Sykes. Shawna is the Workforce Analyst for Clatsop, Columbia, and Tillamook counties.

2 comments:

Gautam said...

You are quite regular with your updates..I am also an economist and would like to follow your blog.

jshot said...

I used to work logging with family member its really fun just get into a habit of cutting down one tree plant two and the future of business continue further planning to join in the near future