From The Oregonian, Jan. 7, 2003, p A1

Loggers displaced in 1990s left behind, study finds
More than half of the workers in the wood products industry left for
jobs elsewhere, took a pay cut or dropped from Oregon records

By MICHAEL MILSTEIN, The Oregonian
One of the great unknowns following the collapse of Northwest timber
cutting through the 1990s was what happened to thousands of loggers,
sawmill workers and others who lost their jobs.
Researchers mining a decade's worth of obscure state employment
records have unearthed an answer, and it's not pretty:
More than half the 60,000 workers who held jobs in the wood products
industry at the start of the 1990s had left it by 1998. And almost
half of those who left disappeared from work rolls - probably moving
to another state, retiring or going unemployed.
Roughly 18,000 of the workers who left the field found a job in
Oregon. But of them, nearly half took jobs in service and retail
businesses - such as restaurants and department stores - ending up
with lower wages, on average, than they earned almost 10 years before.
Viewing the job shifts by region, researchers found that about
one-third of those who lost jobs in rural Southwest and Eastern Oregon
did find work at higher wages - but only after moving to the urban
northwest part of the state.
The findings counter suggestions by some anti-logging activists that
the Northwest's high-tech boom offset logging losses with hardly a
hiccup. While the regional economy as a whole grew to record levels of
income and employment through the 1990s, those who made their living
from timber were largely left behind.
"They did not seem to share in the great bounty of the ‘90s," said
Ted Helvoigt, a former state economist who now works for ECONorthwest,
an economic consulting firm. "More endedup in the lower paid service
industry than anywhere else."
Helvoigt co-authored the study using state employment records to
track thousands of timber workers over the past decade, when debates
over the northern spotted owl and other protected species all but shut
down logging on federal lands. The study may be the first major effort
to watch how environmentally driven economic changes affect individual
workers.
It also was authored by economists at Oregon State University and the
Oregon Employment Department. Publication is expected this year, in
the Journal of Forestry.
Wildlife protections did not eliminate all the jobs, however. Others
disappeared because of increasingly computerized sawmills and the
depressed timber market.
"We all need to appreciate that it's been a rough go for those in the
timber industry," said Mitch Friedman of the Northwest Ecosystem
Alliance. "These are important people and important jobs, but that
shouldn't drive harmful logging practices."
He criticized the Bush administration for fashioning itsel as a
friend of rural America while cutting funds for communities adjusting
to declines in natural resource industries such as logging.

Overlooked database
Economists have long pondered how Oregon's timber work force handled
erosion of its foundation. But it was not until Helvoigt alerted them
to a long-overlooked state database that they could fill in the
blanks.
The database, collected as part of the state unemployment insurance
program, allowed researchers to track individual workers by their
social security numbers. it detailed their job, location and salary
histories from 1989 to 1998. Their names and personal details remained
confidential.
The researchers counted about 60,000 people working in the wood
products sector at the beginning of the 1990s.
By 1998, 42 percent were still employed in wood products. They tended
to be the more highly skilled, better paid workers. About one-third,
usually lower paid workers, shifted to another industry - mainly
service and retail trade, but also construction, manufacturing and
transportation. About 450, or 2.5 percent of those who went into
another line of work, joined the roaring high-tech industry.
Just less than one-third were gone from the records, meaning they
retired, left the state or were unemployed or self-employed. They also
may have formed the core of "a cadre of chronically underemployed
rural residents," the study concluded.
"We can't prove it, but most of them had to have left the state,"
said Darius Adams, a co-author and professor of forest resources at
Oregon State University.

Salary trends
When it comes to salary, the trend was down.
Those who left the timber industry for other jobs saw their median
earnings decline an average of 1 percent from 1990 to 1998, while
those who stayed saw 6 percent increases. The roughly 4,200 who ended
up in the service industry had the lowest earnings of all, with fewer
benefits such as health insurance.
The figures contrast with the 23 percent increase the average oregon
worker enjoyed during the same period.
"People did find employment, but it wasn't quie as rosy as it might
have seemed," Adams said.
More than 60 percent of those who left the timber industry in
sparesley populated Southwest adn Eastern oregon stayed in those parts
of the state, hit hardest by the drop-off in logging on federal lands.
Most of the rest moved to more rapidly growing Northwest Oregon and
ended up with median salaries 29 percent higher - $24,413 versus
$18,967 - than those who stayed behind.
Newcomers moving to the Northwest for well-paying jobs in the
technology industry fueled much of the economic growth in the 1990s,
Helvoigt said.
The study's results illustrate the risks of viewing the regional
economy so broadly that the hardships of individual workers escape
notice.
"When you look at actual individuals, you see that people were
affected," Helvoigt said. "When you look at the averages, you miss the
impacts on individuals."

COMMENT BY POSTER: At least some of those loggers have gone on to look
for mushrooms, which began booming as logging declined. In 1993 at the
height of the matsutake harvest, pickers were making up to $750/lb.
for a short time, and many made $400-500/lb during that particular
season. I have heard of individual pickers who stepped out of line to
sell their mushrooms, ducked behind a telephone pole next to the road,
and came back with enough another $2000 worth of matsus.

My brother must have been one of the lucky wood products workers,
since he went back to school and is now working for Intel as an
electrician at a considerably higher rate of pay.

Posted as a courtesy by
Daniel B. Wheeler
www.oregonwhitetruffles.com

snip
"When you look at actual individuals, you see that people were
affected," Helvoigt said. "When you look at the averages, you miss the
impacts on individuals."

COMMENT BY POSTER: At least some of those loggers have gone on to look
for mushrooms, which began booming as logging declined. In 1993 at the
height of the matsutake harvest, pickers were making up to $750/lb.
for a short time, and many made $400-500/lb during that particular
season. I have heard of individual pickers who stepped out of line to
sell their mushrooms, ducked behind a telephone pole next to the road,
and came back with enough another $2000 worth of matsus.

My brother must have been one of the lucky wood products workers,
since he went back to school and is now working for Intel as an
electrician at a considerably higher rate of pay.

In washington many of the timber workers who were retrained had to
leave. There just wasn't that good a market for 5000 new locksmiths.
I've known several old assocates who've been retrained mutltiple times
and finally got on disability. There still isn't adequate work for
middle aged and older males in the small timber towns. The new motels
and shops were all gotten by newcomers or those habitually close to the
feed trough.