Wood: a natural and industrial resource
An active population
that is concentrated geographically
The Ussel employment zone is served by the A89 (Lyon- Bordeaux) motorway which provides rapid access to Clermont-Ferrand.
Ussel, the sub-prefecture, accounts for almost a third of the population living in the employment zone (10,753). 49% of the population live in the urban areas. It is the only zone in Limousin which showed a negative migratory balance between 1990 and 1999. The six main employers (with more than 100 staff) account for 64% of those employed.
The predominance of activities
linked to wood
Forest, mainly softwood, covers half the territory. 30% of staff employed work in the wood-paper sector, the leading industrial sector, and half of them in the two companies producing panels in Ussel: Polyrey, a subsidiary of the International Paper group, and Isoroy, belonging to the Portuguese Sonae Industria group.
The employment zone also includes recognized expertise in industrial joinery for the building industry: France Portes in Ussel (a highly automated factory producing doors and door-units), Destève in Liginiac (palette manufacture), in furnishing: XL Literie in Monestier-Merlines, Bois Galbé Industrie in Bugeat or in the packaging sector: Field Boxmore Emballage Santé in Ussel, Eurotube in Meymac (packaging for coins and notes).
Among the activities linked to the wood industry, the manufacture of forestry equipment (Équip’forêt in Meymac) needs a mention, as does the specialist training provided by the Meymac lycee.
Higher education in agriculture is also available with two BTSAs in Neuvic, “analysis and management of systems of agricultural exploitation” and “the management and protection of nature”.
Traditional industry: foundry and leather working
Leather working and the textiles industry developed mainly by the tanneries and the silk factory in Bort-les-Orgues, which have disappeared today, depend on ancient knowhow. They continue in the form of a single company, Le Tanneur, the second employer in the zone.
La Société des fonderies d’Ussel SFU, the leading employer in the zone, carries out 60% of its activity for the aerospace industry.
Industry that is changing:
pharmaceuticals and plastics
The pharmaceutical and perfumery sector has almost tripled the number of staff employed in ten years thanks to the presence of a unit belonging to the American Bristol Meyers Squibb group in Meymac and a Pierre Fabre laboratories storage facility in Ussel.
Working with plastics materials is a relatively recent arrival to the area with Stratifrance in Meymac (products made from composite materials) and Plastic Omnium in Bortles- Orgues (plastic parts).