PORTLAND (AP) - Hispanics comprise more than 40 percent of the work force on federal forestland during the busy season, and are more likely to work for companies that don't offer health benefits, according to a survey of the contractors who worked on six federal timberlands.

The study also found Hispanic forest workers more likely than white forest workers to work away from home and seasonally.

“Even among people doing similar work, Hispanics tended to work for companies that offered fewer benefits and less stability in their employment,” said Cassandra Moseley, director of the ecosystem work force program at the University of Oregon's Institute for Sustainable Environment.

Moseley's study was published in the journal Policy Sciences.

Moseley interviewed more than 100 contractors that worked on six national forests in Oregon, North Carolina, Colorado, Montana and Arizona during 1998-2002.

According to the findings, Hispanics made up two-thirds of what Moseley called the industry's labor-intensive work force, performing such jobs as thinning, tree planting and animal control. White workers, meanwhile, comprised 71 percent of the industry's equipment-intensive work force on such jobs as road maintenance, stream restoration and culvert placement.

Nearly two in three Hispanic workers worked for companies offering no health insurance, versus about two in 10 whites.

Fourteen percent of the nation's forest service businesses are based in Oregon, and Moseley's survey included contractors working in the Deschutes and Willamette national forests.

Rick Dice, owner of PatRick Corp, a wildland firefighting company in Redmond, told The Oregonian newspaper that the findings are no surprise.

He said his firm can no longer compete to win contracts to do prescribed burning and brush piling in federal forests. He believes the winning bidders are using Hispanic workers to lower their labor costs.