Oregon’s forest sector economic analysis
August 05, 2019
OFRI periodically takes on the task of evaluating the economic strength of Oregon’s forest sector. We recently completed our third major evaluation during my tenure with OFRI. These evaluations are aimed at providing background to policymakers at the state and local level.
The 2019 Forest Report documents this evaluation, and updates similar efforts in 2012 and 2004. The 2019 evaluation was conducted by faculty from Oregon State University and the University of Idaho. Their efforts culminated in a 100-plus-page report that documents Oregon’s forest resources and markets, examining trends and economic impacts.
Knowing that most people prefer a shorter version of the analysis with lots of pictures and graphs but fewer words, OFRI has also created a summary report titled Oregon’s Forest Economy: 2019 Forest Report – an economic snapshot of Oregon’s forest sector. This 12-page report is quite accessible and easy to understand.
This year’s evaluation is also documented on our updated website: TheForestReport.org. This site provides a place to download the summary report as well as the full forest sector economic report. The website shares the information included in the summary report, with pages titled:
· Jobs
· About
One of the exciting features of the ForestReport.org website is that all the individual pages, charts and tables can be shared by email or social media from the site. So if you want to share with your co-workers the number of jobs in Oregon’s forest sector in a particular subsector of eastern or western Oregon, or statewide, you can go the Jobs page and share the table titled “Forest Sector Jobs in Oregon.”
In addition to the economists at OSU and UI, we’re very grateful to reviewers and data providers at the Oregon Employment Department, USDA Forest Service and Oregon Department of Forestry. OFRI’s name is on the report and the website, but this really represents a report for the entire Oregon forest sector.
In future blogs, I plan to go into depth on some of the data and trends, and help interpret what I think they mean. For the present, I just want to share some excellent summer reading.
For the forest,
Mike Cloughesy
Director of Forestry