Forestry has shown a successful recruitment of younger forest machine operator in recent years, and the young operators seem to be staying in the profession. However, the difficulty of attracting women to the profession remains.
An investigation from 2018 showed a significant risk for forestry that a serious shortage of competent forest machine operator would arise in the period up to 2028. The survey, which was carried out on the initiative of the Forestry Technical Collaboration Group (TSG), showed that high retirements, weak recruitment and dropouts to other occupations were the main reasons.
After five years, TSG has now conducted a new survey with the aim of clarifying how the industry has managed to tackle the problems.
The new study does not shed light on the issue of a possible shortage of machine operators in the forest, but shows that the recruitment of younger operators has been significantly strengthened. The data no longer shows signs that drivers aged 30–40 are leaving the profession. Overall, the corps has been rejuvenated considerably in the five years that have passed since the first study.
The average age of all active drivers has fallen from 44 years in 2018 to 39 years in 2023. This is a significant and statistically significant change.
A lingering silver lining is that women do not see the machine operator profession as an attractive opportunity, although the optimist can point to an increase from 1.7 to 2.8 percent female drivers from 2018 to 2023. The fact that the proportion of women in the profession has increased is statistically significant.
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