Effect of labour costs on wood harvesting costs and timber provision

Efficient forest operations are essential for forest enterprises, who provide wood and numerous ecosystem services for the society. Important factors influencing the efficiency of forest operations, and thus the harvesting costs, are the level of mechanization, the harvesting method applied, the forest road network, and the training of the labourers. The cost of labour, i.e. salaries, is another important driver of harvesting costs. However, its effect on and relative importance for overall harvesting costs is poorly described in the scientific literature. Thus, this study aims to analyse the influence of labour costs in more detail, especially on the country-wide wood harvesting potentials. In addition, we aimed to cross-compare the effect of labour costs with the effect of switching to a more efficient harvesting method. For this purpose, we calculated timber harvesting costs with varying salaries for all sample plots of the Swiss National Forest Inventory (NFI) for both, the currently applied harvesting method recorded in the NFI, and the potential best suitable harvesting method. A 1