Employment:
Wood industries

Wood industries comprise various conversions of wood into solid products. These may be primary products -- like sawn [wood, panels and boards -- or secondary ones like doors and windows, and furniture. Wood industries exist in virtually all countries. Some large producers/exporters of solid wood products do not produce much timber themselves. Italy, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan, China, the biggest exporters of furniture, are cases in point. The contribution of wood industries to GNP varies from <1% to >20%. While the formal wood industry sector in many developing countries may be small, wood processing is one of the largest segments of the informal sector in most countries. Informal wood industries are often intimately linked to agriculture, both in terms of the workforce and of investment.

Formal world employment in the wood industries is about 7.5 million -- 4.3 million in primary processing and 3.2 million in furniture making. Growth is faster in developing countries, particularly in Asia. Informal sector employment in most developing countries exceeds that in the formal sector by a factor of 10:1 or more. Thus there are probably 30-50 million informal sector jobs in addition to those indicated above. Many informal sector jobs are part-time or seasonal.