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The Forestry Based Industry Task Force Group has been mandated to provide Enterprise Miramichi (and its partners) with
sound recommendations on how to improve/develop their sector over the next three to five years.
Key Forestry Sector Actions
Forestry has been the dominate industry in the Miramichi region since the late 1800’s and continues to be the largest
contributor to the local economy. The Forest sector has undergone significant change, especially in the last 2 decades as
changes in technology and global competition have shaped the sector. The region has Pulp, Paper, Lumber, OSB and Value-Added
operations.
The forest industry is a major employer in New Brunswick employing approximately 15,000 people directly and another 13,000
indirectly. In the Miramichi region, the industry employed 2700 people (14.2% of the total labour force) at the time of the
1996 census.[1] Today, the sector employs 2,276 or 12.28% of the labour force and the general outlook
“appears to be continued employee reductions unless new activities are introduced such as increases in silviculture
and value added manufacturing” (Forestry Sector Task Group).
The industry has the opportunity to move upscale to value-added processing, with a heavy emphasis on export markets.
Opportunities for expansion exist in the value added area through better use of the various species available in the fiber
supply and by-product development.
[1] Some of the differences in these figures may be attributable to re-profiling or reclassification of
the data.
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