The Forestry production workforce as a whole is forecast to increase by at least 12% by 2032 (MPI BAU scenario). The trend is for increases in skilled roles:
- No increase for managed roles, such as nursery crew, silviculture manual, harvesting manual, and quality controller.
- 29% increase for forestry managers, nursery manager/owner, inventory crew manager, harvesting management, operations management, and forest roading engineer.
- 22% increase for skilled nursery crew, silviculture machine operators, mensuration technicians, machine operators, driver/machine operators, engineering machine operators/crew managers, harvesting machine operators/crew managers, infield management, dispatch managers, and roading machine operators.
The advice reflects the current state of th industry as it goes through a transition, where industry is looking to ensure that the workforce has the core skills needed, including increasing health and safety. Therefore, we have focussed on level 3 and 4 qualifications for the advice.
We anticipate a growing interest in adopting automation and mechanisation, and boosting forest management, as well as the uptake of the newly developed micro-credentials as things pick back up again. As a land-based industry in the regions, an increased level of importance is being shown by the industry to the role that whenua Māori and whānau, hapū and Iwi play in forestry.
See Qualifications table here.