Part of the reason local mills went into so-called "free fall" from the 1990s and on is the rarely mentioned untaxed and unrestricted export of raw logs from Oregon to Asia. 

In big years, log exports accounted for over a billion board feet annually, a third of Oregon's annual timber harvest. Using the jobs per million board feet figure given by timber industry fronts like the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, 11 forest sector jobs per million feet, then raw log exports sent at least 11,000 forest sector jobs from Oregon to Asia.

Yet we never hear timber industry lobbyists or Oregon's politicians bemoan raw log exports when they talk "jobs"!

Recently, Lincoln county, dominated by corporate timberlands, saw their annual timber harvest level literally double with no net increase in forest sector employment. This huge harvest increase resulted in thousands of acres of additional clearcuts and increased forest poisons , negatively impacting water and wildlife, without local job gains.