| Summary: | The forestry industry played an important role in the industrialization of the Swedish economy in the late 19th century. The aim of this study is to deed with the determination of income and wages in the forestry regions where the sawmills and pulp industries found their raw material supplies.The formation of incomes and wages for lumberjacks and drivers is analysed in the Parish of Jokkmokk in the far north of Sweden for the period 1878 to 1938. The number of workers engaged in forestry is also estimated as is the total labour supply in the parish.Technological development and productivity in felling and transportation are analysed. This part of the study covers the period 1880 to the present, and includes log-driving activities on the Lule River from 1881 to 1977.Briefly, the findings of the study are that income, timber prices and wages in forestry in the parish fluctuated together with exports of forestry products, particularly pulp after the year 1910. Estimates also show that troughs were deeper and booms more marked in the study area than in the overall market for forestry products measured both in volume and in export value.Labour productivity in felling and transport showed a rising tendency in the last two decades of the 19th century, which reflects the replacement of the axe as the only instrument for felling by the two-man timber saw. Better horses, fodder and sledges also raised efficiency.However, during the first half of the 20th century, labour productivity was markedly stagnant. Improvements in equipment, such as better steel in the saws, even stronger horses and so on, could not compensate for circumstances such as longer transporting distances and more cutting in the forests with lower volume per tree.These latter tendencies reflect a growing shortage of raw materials which the Swedish forestry industries had to face from about the turn of the century. Not until about 1955, when tractors replaced horses and the power saw replaced the one-man timber saw, did productivity rise substantially. ...
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