Actually, wood products went up 1.3% according to your link.
FYI, sawmill employment has not gone up much because there is actually a shortage of timber over the last year. The only production increases are starting to happen in the southern US pine mills.
It is very difficult to find people who want to work in a sawmill. Most are in remote towns with a small labor pool. In Oregon and Washington it is hard to hire people that can pass a drug test. People do not want to do physical labor.
The same factors affecting hiring in the wood products industry are similar in the trucking industry. Trucking companies are offering signing bonuses and can not find enough drivers. Would you want to put a pot smoker behind the wheel of a $150K tractor pulling a $75K trailer hauling 48m lbs of cargo?
Everyone is holding out for a management position.
>>>Actually, wood products went up 1.3% according to your link
That was the month-to-month growth. I was referring to year-over-year data.
So if timber is hard to come by and it’s also hard to find workers, why are we punishing home buyers? It seems the only ones benefiting from this are the shareholders of the lumber companies.