Supply Chain & Operations
Where Have All the Foresters Gone? Confronting the Skilled Labor Shortage Threatening US Timber Operations
The US timber industry is facing a workforce contraction that threatens to constrain production capacity well before raw material supply becomes the binding constraint. Retirements are outpacing recruitment across every skilled discipline — from licensed foresters and equipment operators to mill technicians — and the pipeline of trained replacements remains dangerously thin. Enterprise operators who treat this as a background concern rather than a strategic priority risk discovering, too late, t
