According to a new report by the International Labour Office (ILO), the number of employments in the world's forestry and wood industries - including logging, pulp, furniture and paper products - is expected to decline significantly over the coming years, with the potential loss of millions of jobs worldwide. The report says that restrictions on forest harvesting introduced in China alone will affect more than 1.2 million forest workers and almost 900,000 will lose their jobs. The industry of plywood from Indonesia has registered a lost of more than 40,000 jobs, thing due to the missing raw materials. In the United States, trade unions worry that a ban on road building in public forests will cost up to 12,000 jobs.
ILO studies indicate that failure to address the challenges of globalization and sustain the forestry and wood industry sectors could lead to elimination of more than 5 percent of the global workforce in this area, estimated at some 47 million. Among the factors that are threatening jobs in the sector are the restrictions on forest harvesting, the effects of mergers and acquisitions, structural changes and lack of resources in the forestry, wood, furniture and paper industries.
Governments are playing an active role in all the countries in order to regulate, but also to promote sustainable development of the sector, including improvement of skills, the nurturing of small- and medium-sized firms that create more jobs and social dialogue. |
