The Hellbender Chronicles

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October 15, 2003

Logging: America's Most Dangerous Job

The following is from an article entitled "The top ten most dangerous jobs in America" published Monday on the CNN/Money website:

-snip-
New York (CNN/Money) - On December 3, 2002, a section of a felled tree
struck and killed an 18-year-old logger. He was one of the last of 104
lumbermen to die in 2002, when timber cutters led the nation with the
highest on-the-job mortality rate of any vocation.

The mortality rate among lumbermen, 118 timber cutters per 100,000
workers, heads the list of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in America for
2002 put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and was more than 26 times
that of the average U.S. worker.

...Many timber fellers earn upwards of $60,000 working a nine- or 10-month year.
-end snip-

While the article states that loggers make upwards of $60,000 annually, that's not the case here in the Allegheny region. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics database loggers in Elk County, PA, earned an average of $409 per week. Even if these folks worked this most dangerous job for 52 weeks of the year (which they generally don't) that would amount to just $21,268. One likely cause of the disparity is the lack of unions in the timber industry in this area. The higher-paying jobs in this industry are in manufacturing. Unfortunately, much of the high-value hardwoods from this region are shipped to manufacturing facilities overseas. (Interestingly, the state, through the Hardwood Development Council, actively supports timber exports by furthering initiatives to draw timber buyers from Europe and Asia.)

-Rachel Martin

Posted by at October 15, 2003 06:04 PM

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Posted by: doug at July 24, 2004 05:27 PM

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