The Annual Business Survey (ABS), carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), includes statistics on employment broken down by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC 2007). In wood processing, SIC 16 (wood products) and SIC 17 (pulp, paper and paper products) have a much wider scope than the data on employment in primary wood processing (Table 7.2), as they include primary processing of imported material and also some secondary processing.

The Annual Business Survey recorded average employment in 2015 of 17 thousand in forestry and 26 thousand in primary wood processing (sawmilling, panels and pulp & paper) (Table 7.1).

Table 7.1 Employment in forestry and wood processing², 2011-2015

^{Source: Annual Business Survey – average employment in year (Office for National Statistics, June 2017)}

^Notes:

^{1. Categories are based on the UK Standard Industrial Classification (SIC 2007)categories. Further details on the SIC codes used are provided in the Sources: Employment and businesses page.}

^{2. Excludes other wood-using industries.}

^{3. Pulp and paper breakdowns for 2011 to 2015 have been suppressed in the figures released by ONS. The figures shown here are estimated from 2008 figures.}