Furphy: Logging in NSW public native forests employs thousands of people.

Fact: Logging in public native forests only employs a thousand people across NSW.

Native forest logging is highly mechanised, meaning the number of people needed to fell, transport and process logs is small (Lindenmayer 2024 pp.133).

Direct employment in the public native forest industry in NSW was estimated to be only 1,070 employees prior to the 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires. This number includes Forestry Corporation of NSW (FCNSW) staff, harvest and haulage contractor staff and primary processors (hardwood mills and chipping) and comprises 332 employees on the south coast, 590 on the north coast and up to 150 in the west of the state (Frontier Economics 2022, 2024 pp.18-20). Approximately 220 are in the proposed Great Koala National Park area (Pugh 2025).

The employment figure is based on data from the NSW Natural Resources Commission (NRC 2021) and checked against various other sources (Frontier Economics 2024 pp.19). The figure does not take into account industry downturn since the bushfires.

Public native forestry is a small part of the broader forestry sector. According to data from the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics Census, there were 14,615 people employed in forestry in NSW in 2021, which also includes plantations on public lands, forestry on private lands and manufacturing of wood products, pulp and paper. Employment in public native forest logging is approximately 7 per cent of this figure (Frontier Economics 2024 pp.19).

In the 13 local government areas (LGAs) with public native forest logging, all forestry and logging (native forests and plantations, public and private) represented up to 1.4 per cent of LGA employment (median 0.5 per cent) in 2020-2021. For wood products manufacturing it was up to 2.5 per cent (median 0.8 per cent) (Frontier Economics 2022 pp.18-20).

Employment in public native forestry has declined significantly in recent years. Between 2006 and 2016, forestry-related employment (both native forests and plantations, including wood products, pulp and paper manufacturing) decreased by 14 per cent in the North East RFA area. For the South Coast and Eden RFAs there were decreases of 27 and 39 per cent respectively (Frontier Economics 2022 pp.20-22).

Across NSW, employment in the entire forestry industry decreased by 34 per cent between 2006 and 2021 (Pugh 2025 pp.5-6, based on data from ABARES 2024).

Further reading

Frontier Economics (2022). Transition support for the NSW native forest sector. A report for the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia, 8 August. Available at: https://wwf.org.au.

Frontier Economics (2024). Forestry transition and regional employment. A report for the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia, 6 December. Available at: https://wwf.org.au.

Lindenmayer, D. (2024). The forest wars. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, pp.130-134.