Forest entrepreneur Janne Oldenburg knows that not every branch has professionals in the harvesting chain.
Puistometsäpalvelu Oldenburg Oy is probably not the most typical forestry contracting company in Finland. However, the challenges faced by the company operating in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and Southern Finland are largely similar to those faced by companies in the industry elsewhere in Finland.
Entrepreneur Janne Oldenburg According to the report, the situation in the harvesting chain is threatening to become bad soon unless more people are recruited into the sector. The labor shortage threatens to become a stifling plug for the budding growth of the forest industry. The investments already made and planned in the sector will significantly increase the use of domestic wood. But wood does not move from the forest to production on its own.
Entrepreneurs are constantly having to think about where to find skilled workers for harvesters and forwarders, which are used to transport timber from the forest to the roadside to wait for logging trucks.
"We are in a good situation in that one of our forwarder drivers has shown interest in the harvester's needles. Then we have to find another forestry tractor driver, of course, but that is easier than getting a harvester driver. We will soon have to replace them, because the guy who uses our other harvester is already really retired."
Oldenburg believes that not everyone is fit to work in the harvesting chain, and especially not to be a harvester, because the hands of a machine that cuts and prunes trees in the forest require the grip of a logger who understands the forest.
"And information about stands, tree species and felling volumes is continuously fed through the lines to the driving terminal, so you should also know something about IT. In addition, a lot of machine-related expertise is needed."
Machine expertise is very important for a harvester driver, because sometimes the worksite is far from everything. Although maintenance will help in the event of a major failure, for example, you should be able to change a hydraulic hose by yourself, even at night. A production stoppage is always expensive, because so is the harvester.
The new Ponssen Scorpion, which will arrive for the Park Forest Service in early spring 2015, will cost 500 euros, the current machine a little less.
"You really should have an expert in the field right away. You should be able to produce results quite quickly, meaning you should have enough machines, because the investment in machinery is so high," Oldenburg points out.
Light in the forestry sector
The emerging labor shortage is also unfortunate because the situation in the industry otherwise looks quite good and bright from an entrepreneur's perspective. For example, the revival of investments in heating plants has helped the rise of bioenergy businesses, including wood chipping and wood chip transportation.
Puistometsäpalvelu Oldenburg Oy has had plenty of work since the beginning of 2009.
“The beginning of time” is precisely at that time, as the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers in the fall of 2008 also froze business at the headquarters of Puistometsäpalvelu Oldenburg Oy, at Radioasemantie 10 in Vantaa.
"Things came to a standstill then. I spent about four months twiddling my thumbs. Then things started to pick up."
The momentum has remained good – but there may soon be a shortage of sufficient labor.
Text: Jaakko Liikanen
Photo: Matti Immonen
