154 



Specific Trends for Humboldt County 



It is clear upon reviewing the harvest and employment statistics for Northern Califcmia 

 that more people are required to process one million board feet of old growth than one million 

 board feet of young growth logs. Based on data covering the period from 1978 to 1990, 1 

 estimated that processing pure old growth requires roughly 30% more labor than the current 

 regional mix of old and young growth. Total employment involved in logging and processing 

 one million board feet of old growdi logs would include roughly one logging job, one half a 

 tree plant job and six and a half sawmilling jobs. Beyond the first year, however, it is also 

 necessary to account for increases in labor productivity resulting from the purchase of new mill 

 machinery and the retiring of old machinery. 



Even though the increase in labor productivity has been closely associated with the shift 

 from a harvest dominated by old growth logs to one dominated by young growth logs, old 

 growth processing also improves with new machinery. For example, labor requirements for 

 an identical mix of old and young growth logs in the Central Sierras are roughly one half of 

 that in the North Coast In the Central Sierras, the percentage of the harvest from old growth 

 logs had no impact on employment This would not occur if the processing of old growth was 

 impervious to introduction of new machinery. Hie diffusion of existing technology among 

 diffoent mills in the industry is going on now and will continue. Taking a conservative view 

 diat the diffusion of more productive technology from the industry leaders to the whole North 

 Coast timber industry would take ten years, the number of jobs required to process one million 

 board feet would drop from 8 to 4 workers over a decade. Based on this process of 

 technological diffusion, 61 person years would be required to process an annual flow of one 

 million board feet of lumber for a decade. This compares to an estimated 95 person-years that 

 one gets by simply dividing current employment by lumber output This back of the envelope 

 calculat ion is 50% greater than the projection I would make based cm an econometric analysis 

 of the relationship of the recent historical record in California. 



Headwaters Forest Act Testimony, William Stewart October 1 3, 1993 7 



