Forests employ 42 million people worldwide

• Forests employ approximately 42 million people worldwide, with women accounting for one quarter of the workforce, according to new research from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Thünen Institute of Forestry.

• The report titled ‘Updated methodology to quantify forest-sector employment: Global and regional estimates’ presents fresh estimates that help close critical data gaps in global and regional forest-sector employment between 2011 and 2022.

• The joint paper draws on annual data for the sector and its subsectors for 182 countries, representing 99 percent of the world’s forest area.

• The study also presented the first global sex-disaggregated employment estimates for the forest sector.

How forest-sector employment contributes to economies?

• Forests, forest products and forest ecosystem services significantly contribute to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with impacts on several SDGs, including SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 12 (Sustainable Consumption and Production), SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 15 (Life on Land). 

• The forest sector plays a vital role in national economies and sustainable development by generating employment, creating economic value and supporting environmental sustainability, among other contributions. 

• It is also a cornerstone of the transition to a sustainable bioeconomy, supplying renewable biological resources and bio-based products that foster societal well-being and sustainable economic development. 

• In this context, forest-sector employment contributes to economies by creating additional livelihood options, especially in rural areas where sources of income generation are often limited.

• The number of people employed in the forest sector serves as a long-standing and tangible measure for assessing the socioeconomic importance of forest-related economic activities. 

• Internationally comparable data on employment in the forest sector are needed to ensure evidence-based policymaking and foster a sustainable and resilient forest sector.

• The forest sector provided employment to at least 42 million people globally in 2022.

• Across the sector, wood and wood product manufacturing remains the largest source of employment, accounting for approximately 58 per cent of total forest employment, followed by forestry and logging, and pulp and paper manufacturing.

• The role of the forestry and logging sub-sector in job creation has remained relatively stable over the past decade, consistently representing nearly one-third of the total forest-sector employment worldwide. 

• In 2022, the manufacture of pulp and paper sub-sector represented approximately 16 per cent of total employment in the forest sector.

• The forest sector accounted for 1.2 per cent of the global employment in 2022 – a decline of approximately 3.1 per cent with respect to 2011. 

• Asia has consistently maintained the largest share of total employment in the forest sector, on average around 1.4 per cent over the past decade. 

• In Europe, the share of forest-sector employment declined slightly from 1.3 per cent in 2011 to 1.2 per cent in 2022, reflecting a modest reduction in the sector’s contribution to employment. 

• Africa experienced fluctuations, starting at 1.2 per cent in 2011, peaking in 2016, and subsequently declining to 1 per cent by 2022. 

• The Americas exhibited a relatively stable trend, with a rate of around 0.8 per cent and minor fluctuations following the COVID-19 pandemic. 

• In Oceania, the forest sector’s employment share of total employment stood at 0.9 per cent in 2011 but showed slight variability between 2013 and 2015, then declined to 0.8 per cent by 2022, following the pandemic.

Female employment in the forest sector

• In 2022, an estimated 10.6 million women were employed in the global forest sector, accounting for 25 per cent of its workforce. 

• Between 2011 and 2022, approximately 0.8 per cent of women and 1.5 per cent of men worked in the forest sector worldwide, highlighting a persistent gender employment gap evident across all regions. 

• In Europe, the disparity was widest, with 1.8 per cent of men and only 0.5 per cent of women employed in the forest sector in 2022. 

• In contrast, the gender gap in the forest employment share was narrower in Africa, the Americas and Asia, ranging from 0.6 to 0.7 percentage points, with men still accounting for a slightly larger share than women. 

• Africa saw a slight decline in forest-sector employment for both genders between 2016 and 2022. 

• Despite the sector remaining predominantly male across all regions, the gender employment gap has narrowed in parts of Asia – particularly in South and Southeast Asia, declining from 0.36 percentage points in 2011 to 0.15 percentage points in 2022.