By Joel McKay
BC’s forest industry is predicting brighter times ahead, but experts say there might not be enough people left in the sector to take advantage of the boom times when they finally arrive.
Dave Lewis, executive director of the Truck Loggers Association, believes the industry and provincial government have done an excellent job of building market presence abroad to keep mills churning out wood products amid the U.S. housing collapse.
But that hasn’t stopped an exodus of workers from hollowing out the sector in recent years, and when U.S. demand for B.C. wood products eventually rebounds, the industry might not have the manpower to respond.
“When you look at contractors themselves, most of the successful guys who are well established, who are going to be expected to lead this expansion to meet demand, they’re all in their mid-to-late 50s … they’re retiring,” said Lewis.
“I see the problem coming up is demand is going to go through the roof and we’re not going to be able to supply that demand, and if we can’t supply that demand quickly we’ll be displaced by other regions globally.”
Lewis’ comments came just weeks after Vancouver’s International WOOD Markets Group Inc. predicted that supply constraints at home and abroad will introduce a “new world order” for the province’s forest sector by 2015 (see “Branching out: Forestry’s Asian growing pains” – issue 1104, December 21- 27, 2010).
WOOD Markets president Russ Taylor believes those supply dynamics will boost the industry, but he agrees that it might be difficult to find new workers when the markets start sucking back more lumber, logs and pulp.
In fact, Taylor said the shortage has already started, and many logging contractors and truck drivers have found work in Alberta’s oilpatch.
“This recession was so long for [the forestry] sector that they’ve lost a lot of that critical mass that’s going to be required to mobilize when things improve,” Taylor said.
Ron Hogg, owner of recruiting firm Forest People, believes certain mill maintenance and engineering positions are going to be in high demand in the coming years.
He added that many of the human resources experts that once recruited for mills have also moved into the oil and gas sector, where they can command higher salaries.
Add to that the fact that many of the subcontractors have disappeared amid industry-wide consolidation.
“Take a look at the companies that 15 years ago existed to rebuild sawmills and upgrade sawmills. I would suggest half of them don’t exist today,” Hogg said.
“It’s not only those companies, it’s their support group … when the time comes, the money starts flowing again, there’s going to be fewer people around, fewer suppliers around, fewer contractors around to bid on that work, and I think we’re going to see some upward prices as a result.”
Lewis’ big fear is that if the industry does nothing its cost structure will go through the roof as companies compete for labour.
“We’ll fight over the scarcity and drive our production costs through the roof … we’ve worked really hard to pare down our industry to meet the demand currently, but we’re not going to be able to get it back when it matters,” Lewis said.
He believes the industry needs to shift its focus from locating alternative markets to supplying those markets.
That means shedding the industry’s negative public image and boosting recruitment efforts.
But that’s not an easy task.
For starters, the industry has yet to fully recover, and many companies remain in survival mode despite being back in the black.
“I think a lot of them are going to be nervous about being overexposed,” Taylor said. “There’s going to be a lot of companies going, ‘Leaner is meaner.’”
And B.C.’s Interior faces yet another hurdle: the impacts of the mountain pine beetle infestation.
“[If] companies are cranking up in the Interior there’s going to be a plateau period by 2014 or 2015 [and] guess what? It’s reduction time again because the wood quality is going to deteriorate so bad there’s going to be a massive numbers of mill closures over a five-year period,” explained Taylor.
That means coastal forestry companies might have an easier time recruiting and retaining top talent than their Interior counterparts.
But experts say that doesn’t change the fact that when demand returns, one of B.C.’s most storied industries is going to need a new generation of workers.
Said Taylor: “Anybody young, mobile or very well skilled if they got laid off, they’re probably gone and not coming back.”
152,000 – B.C.’s timber-base employment in 2009
23% - the amount that employment decreased between 2007 and 2009