Seafaring Careers: Raising the Profile

Seafaring Careers: Raising the Profile

A General View

Dear participants to the Seminar, ladies and gentlemen,

A year ago we completed with you a series of ten annual seminars, which started in 1998 and were dedicated to the eradication of substandard shipping. In essence, their themes covered practically all issues that related one way or another to the solution of the said problem and attracted close attention of the maritime community. The human element, safety culture, transparency and responsibility sharing, implementation of requirements, marine environment protection and maritime security – to mention just some of them.

Today, the world shipbuilding is booming, and the world’s fleet keeps getting most sophisticated high-tech and environmentally-safe ships of different types. The International Maritime Organization continues its work on the development of goal-based ship design and construction standards. In accordance with the IACS Common Structural Rules the state-of-the-art oil tankers and bulk carriers are being constructed, whose lifetime is designed as 25 years, and which are fit for service in harsh conditions of North Atlantic.

The results of the rule-making and technology development efforts may be impressive and encouraging, thus contributing to the promotion of the industry image. But how come that against the background of apparent achievements we put more and more frequently one question – who will take control of these ships, who will operate their sophisticated equipment, is everything made to ensure adequate complement of these ships with true professionals and their safe navigation?

Having directed main efforts to the development and implementation of technical requirements ensuring maritime safety and marine environment protection, the maritime industry is now facing an unprecedented crisis of the personnel shortage. According to some expert assessments, the shortage of ship officers will amount to some 27 to 45 thousand within the coming years. By the same estimate, this trend may worsen, taking in account that the number of ships is globally increasing by circa 1 per cent a year. This means that radical measures are to be taken to mend the situation, otherwise there would be an inevitable crisis, which in fact, we have already faced. I hate to be a pessimist, but, regrettably, we will feel the consequences of this crisis for years to come. There is no doubt they will adversely affect the maritime industry, which, as any other industry, needs the sustainable development.

That is why, in response to owners’ concern, and at their request, the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping has decided to hold a second series of seminars under the motto ‘Quality Shipping: XXI Century Standard’ and to dedicate the present forum to the theme ‘Seafaring Careers: Raising the Profile’.

Why is the seafaring career, praised in prose and poetry with epithets as ‘legendary’, ‘manly’ and alike, quite recently esteemed by the public and seemingly select, losing its status that rapidly? What are the components of the seamanship profile and what has to be done to raise its prestige? Let us try to find this out together.

Ladies and gentlemen,

According to the majority of estimates at our disposal, about 1 million 200 thousand persons are employed in the shipping industry today. Bearing in mind that the population of our planet is approaching 6.7 billions, the share of people belonging to the shipping industry is 0.018 per cent only. This is hard to believe, since more than 2/3 of cargoes forming up the basis of the world’s trade turnover, is carried by sea. Among these products shipped are energy products and foodstuffs, raw materials for industry and many other items. For island states like the United Kingdom and Japan, the share of cargoes carried by sea equals already to about 98 per cent. As Admiral E. Mitropoulos, the Secretary General of the International Maritime Organization, pointed out, we do not fully realize that without shipping the people would be starving in cold houses, although it appears that the majority is not ready to realize it.

An obvious implication is that normal running of the world economy is impossible without the merchant fleet, and that the fleet itself needs a sustainable influx of the qualified personnel. Therefore, I would like to start with such factor of prime importance as motivating the young people who face the choice of their future career. I would like to specify right from the beginning that my review would rather be an enumeration of the subjects of our discussion than analysis of reasons underlying the shortage of the qualified shipboard personnel.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Which higher school to enter? This is a question the majority of young people ask themselves after graduating from the school. It is just good if the youngsters can form a clear notion of their future career during their school years upon an advice of their parents, teachers and relatives. It might be even better if the young people were given opportunities to obtain practical skills and to ascertain, on the basis of their own experience, that their choice was correct. An ideal situation is when the career, once chosen, becomes a lifework.

I do not think anyone would argue that the principal factor, when choosing a career, is its status value. With regard to a career, the very concept of status value contains the essence of individual and public attitude towards factors underlying the formation of a generally accepted view concerning the allure of a career and, ultimately, the quality of life.

The status value of the seafaring career is a special topic of our discussion.

It goes without saying that one of the dominating factors, when choosing a career, is the material remuneration for the work. One will not be fed up with the sea romance, as they say. Nowadays, other careers offer more than enough opportunities to see the world as well. On the other hand, all these ‘8-days-a-week’ watches, daily duties and overtime works like endless all-hands jobs, drills, checks etc. with the burden of responsibility growing and the time for rest fading, bear no comparison to the measured rhythm of life ashore. The hard labour of a qualified seafarer deprived of the advantages of the work and rest ashore is worth an adequate pay to guarantee a decent life for him/her and his/her family.

But money is not always in the first place!

In the course of preparations for the Seminar, Russian Maritime Register of Shipping has conducted anonymous questioning of 1,200 students and cadets at 7 major maritime academies of Russia and Ukraine (St.-Petersburg, Vladivostok, Novorossiysk, Odessa and Nikolaev). Its generalized results may be seen on the following diagrams.

What are the main conclusions? Let us turn to Diagram 1.

Diagram 1

The first, not much comforting, conclusion is that only 44 per cent of respondents, answering the question ‘What has influenced your decision to enter a maritime academy?’, expressed their certitude to get an attractive job after graduation. 26 per cent made their choice following family traditions, as well as advice of the relatives and friends. Regrettably, only 5 per cent of the would-be maritime professionals have chosen marine education because of the guarantees provided by shipping companies, and in my opinion, there is a tremendous potential behind all this, which the companies are to think over more thoroughly.

Diagram 2

As one may see from the second diagram, 68 per cent of the respondents are planning to devote their life to the sea after graduation, and 15 per cent of them are not yet certain about their decision. It seems to me the latter, in particular, is to be considered an unused resource by shipping companies when recruiting new personnel, since it needs support while making a start in life.

From the next diagram it may be seen that young people having chosen the seafaring career consider not only the material aspect of the matter, preferred by 31 per cent of the respondents only, but also the demand for the career (28 per cent) and the career perspectives on board the ships (24 per cent).

Diagram 3

The answers to the question ‘How long are you going to stay in merchant fleet?’ are as follows:

Diagram 4

19 per cent of students responded: ‘Until retirement’, 27 per cent responded: ‘Until obtaining a sought position’, the same number responded: ‘Until finding a better paid job ashore’, and 22 per cent gave a response: ‘Until accumulating savings sufficient for real property acquisition’.

The answers to the last question may be viewed in different ways, but the main thing, in my opinion, is that the majority of the young people look upon their work at sea as a temporary stage, and they are not prepared to dedicate the whole life to it.

Therefore it is very important that shipping companies engaged on the training and preservation of their own personnel launch long-term programs of working with this staff, including their training and refresher courses at educational institutions. Besides, it is equally important that they not only provide all conditions necessary for the promotion and career progress of the seafarers, but also grant the relevant guarantees in the social sphere, irrespective of whether the employee works at sea or ashore. Appreciating the true concern and sharing the goals and traditions of the company, the seafarer will associate himself/herself with it for sure and for a long time.

We are convinced that the problem of the personnel shortage and the image of the maritime industry are interlinked and, therefore, the approach towards its solution should have a holistic nature.

In our opinion, one of the aspects of this holistic approach is the necessity to raise responsibility of shipping companies for the training of their ship crews. It is pretty evident that any attempts to benefit from hiring seafarers who are not adequately trained will not, most likely, result in the desired effect due to owner’s losses because of low quality of machinery and equipment maintenance, failures, incidents, etc. However, as far as we are aware, this aspect has never been analyzed thoroughly, and in this connection we believe that the maritime community should be invited to conduct a relevant research, whose results and conclusions may be subject to discussion by all stakeholders.

At the same time, we fully share the opinion of our partners in the industry that the practice of poaching when qualified personnel is drawn away to a company from another one which had trained that personnel at its own expense, has no future and is to be strongly condemned.

The factor of seafarers’ fatigue is worth a further and more detailed consideration in the general context of maritime safety determined by the human element. In this connection, the comprehensive review of the STCW Convention and Code, as well as the review of the minimum safe manning level, currently underway in the International Maritime Organization, could be considered as a process that may have quite encouraging results. As we hope, this will contribute to a proper account for highly specific working conditions on board specialized and high-tech ships, and the increased requirements for the personnel training related thereto. I also believe it would be appropriate to observe here that the owners and designers, in view of the lack of skilled personnel, will inevitably face the need in further increase of the number of highly automated ships, i.e. ships having reduced crews.

When describing the specific character of work aboard sea-going ships, one cannot pass over the adoption of an international instrument of prime importance by the International Labour Organization in 2006, namely, the Maritime Labour Convention. We would daresay the wide familiarization of all parties concerned with the goals and tasks of the Convention should be construed as an indispensable part of the activities on enhancing the status value of seafaring careers. Seafarers should be well aware of the fact that this document will guarantee them a wide range of rights in their relations with employers and will establish high standards of occupational safety and habitability on board the ships. Along with the SOLAS, MARPOL and STCW Conventions, the new ILO Convention will form, so to say, the ‘fourth pillar’ of the international maritime law.

According to experts, the global fall of the world’s unemployment level and early retirement in a number of countries, should be also mentioned among the indicative reasons of the qualified personnel shortage in the shipping, whereas the spread of fake certificates is stated as almost an inevitable attribute of this trend. Probably, such views have some real basis behind them, but merchant shipping is more subjected to globalization compared to other industries, hence we have all reasons to hope that the existing situation can be tackled with success.

Among other problems worth mentioning in relation to restoring the reputation of seafaring careers, I would state the following:

-  insufficient number of marine educational institutions, low financial back-up;

-  criminalization of seafarers, which cannot be substantiated in all cases and which breaches the existing legislation;

-  lack of berths for cadets on board the ships or their very limited number;

-  stress situations typical for the work on board the ships;

-  artificial barriers erected by some Flag States in the recruiting of manpower for shipping;

-  unsatisfactory social protection of seafarers due to gaps in legislation (lack of retirement insurance guarantees and social benefits available in other branches).

As I said before, the solution to the last problem mentioned is interconnected with the global implementation of MLC 2006. From our side, we would mention, as another reason for the outflow of labour force from the shipping, high complexity of the legislation on the safety at sea presently in use by the participants of the international shipping process. A huge number of amendments to the existing international instruments and high frequency of their adoption would hardly contribute to the attractiveness of sea labour, which is being further overburdened, to an ever-growing degree, with paperwork and bureaucratic procedures. It goes without saying that we do not object to harsh measures aimed at establishing due order, but we would like nevertheless to observe that the bulk of formalities existing today is far from reasonable. Some time ago, IMO through Resolution А.500(XII) rightfully recognized the superfluous character of new international instruments, which caused a certain damage to the efficient implementation of the existing instruments of the Organization. One may draw a conclusion that many participants to the international shipping have developed a sort of ‘immunity’ to the changes, which reduces their response. In our opinion, the lawmaking process should be given a more systemic character, development of new acts should be based on a modern approach, on the Formal Safety Assessment, for instance, which would help avoiding the superfluous character of requirements.