Annals of the “Ovidius” University, Economic Sciences Series
Volume XI, Issue 1 /2011
Motivation to Join Maritime Sector- Norway’s Case
Utureanu Simona,
Universitatea „Ovidius”Constanţa
Dragomir Cristina
Universitatea Maritimă Constanţa
Burcă Ana Maria
Annals of the “Ovidius” University, Economic Sciences Series
Volume XI, Issue 1 /2011
Abstract
Skilled and experienced crews are essential to the successful operation of today’s technologically advanced vessels. The growing shortage of qualified seafarers of today has a dramatic impact for worldwide maritime transport. In order to prevent the disadvantages of seafarers’ shortage for economy, a maritime country from Europe, Norway, has a complex approach for identifying best initiatives to attract young people to a seafarer career. This paper presents the reasons for why seafaring is not an attractive career anymore, the public initiatives of the Norwegian government for motivation to join the maritime sector and the private initiatives of Norwegian companies and foundations for solving the shortage problem.
Cuvinte cheie: motivation, seafarer, shortage, Norway, maritime transport
Clasificare J.E.L.: O15, O18, J24
1. Introducere
The shipping industry is central to the global economy, annually transporting goods – oil and gas, food stuffs and commodities, manufactured products for import and export – that account for approximately 90 percent of world trade. The global fleet of merchant ships is registered in over 150 countries and operated by more than one million crew members of all nationalities.
According to BIMCO and the International Shipping Federation (ISF) 2010 study of the worldwide supply and demand for seafarers, the worldwide supply of seafarers in 2010 was estimated to be 624,000 officers and 747,000 ratings, while the current worldwide demand for seafarers is 637,000 officers and 747,000 ratings.These figures suggest a growing shortage of seafarer. The BIMCO/ISF study highlights that shortages are more acute in specialised sectors such as tankers and offshore support vessels. With regard to certain nationalities, there is an underlying concern about the current and future availability of senior officers. But while there is some evidence of continuing recruitment and retention problems, these are not as severe as envisaged by the last Update produced by BIMCO and ISF in 2005. The data suggests a notable improvement in supply side numbers over the past 5 years, notably in China, India and the Philippines, but also in several OECD countries. The 2010 Update also presents various global supply/demand balance scenarios for the next decade. The results indicate that the industry will most probably face a tightening labour market, with recurrent shortages for officers, particularly as shipping markets recover. Unless measures are taken to ensure a continued rapid growth in qualified seafarer numbers, especially for officers, and/or to reduce wastage from the industry, existing shortages are likely to intensify over the next decade[1].
As European Community Shipowners Association has acknowledged, any government action will be influenced by the need to maintain the competitiveness of European shipping. Balancing strategic and economic needs, particularly in a time of both austerity and geopolitical uncertainty, will be a challenging task. With government spending being ruthlessly cut, any support for training and employing nationals at sea will be difficult to justify.
Even if the governments of European seafarers, like their counterparts in other OECD countries, are able to produce policies that help recruitment and training, decisions already taken by European companies to increase their reliance on non-OECD officers will be difficult to reverse [2].
Norway has the world’s 5 largest shipping fleet. In Norway, there are ship finance and ship broker firms that are world leaders. There are also the world’s leading companies in insurance, yards and equipment, short sea shipping, tankers, gas transport and car transportation. Norway leads the way in marine research and Europe’s largest shipyard group located in Norway. Over 60 000 seafarers from 60 countries are working on Norwegian ships and approximately 20 000 of them are Norwegians [3].
The problem of qualified seafarers’ shortage is more complex, as 80-90 percent of maritime accidents can be ascribed to human error.
2. Why seafaring is not an attractive career anymore ?
In order to find the best solutions for motivation to join the maritime sector, the causes that make seafaring unattractive should be carefully considered. Today, enough seafarers are not available to meet the requirements of the industry. Following there are some reasons for which seafaring is not attractive for young generation.
1. Expensive initial training: The course fees demanded by the training institutes are very high for a person to choose shipping as a profession. Further, many maritime institutes are not recognised by the government and legal bodies.
2. Vertical career growth: Some believe that career growth for the persons who take up shipping as their profession is limited. Like in any other profession where one can aspire to become the head of the organisation by competence, here in shipping no such vertical career growth is possible. One may become the Master or Chief Engineer of a Ship or find a job ashore in the maritime domain but vertical growth inside the company is limited or not possible.
3. Limited shore jobs: At some point of life, a seafarer has to take up shore job. But unfortunately, not enough shore jobs are available for a seafarer. At the most he may get some marine based shore jobs in coastal area.
4. Unstable career: Very few seafarers only can take up shipping as their life time profession, without any career growth. At the end of their life, they realise that no significant achievements were made.
5. Less manpower and more work: Shipping companies, to attract more people in the shipping, tend to pay more salary. This is only an illusion. To pay more the shipping companies reduce the man power in ships. Ultimately the seafarer is made to work more.
6. Not able to cope up with technological developments: The navigational equipments and engine control systems in the ships are mostly electronic. Due to technological advancements, the seafarer has to update his working knowledge of these equipments. If the seafarer is not able to cope up with these developments, he is bound to fail in his profession.
7. Rough seas and sea sickness cause less productivity: As the ship is a three axis moving platform, rough seas cause sea sickness that affects the productivity of the seafarer which is unique in ships.
8. Piracy threats and marine terrorism: Piracy attacks and marine terrorism on the ships are increasing globally. Unlike storm warnings, no one can predict these surprise attacks.
9. Natural calamity: Though storms and rough weather can be predicted, there are increasing instances of ships getting caught in storms and rough weather that result in groundings, collisions and other emergency situations.
10. Multicultural environment issues: The ships are manned by multi cultural crews who have different lifestyles, religions and languages. The seafarer has to adapt himself to live in multicultural environment and a failure to adapt results in lesser productivity of the seafarer.
11. Frequent validations, training needed: To sustain in ships, seafarer has to undergo time bound validation courses in recognised institutes which are time consuming and expensive.
12. Unsafe ships: Ships have definite lifecycle and are not sea worthy beyond that. But shipping companies try their best to extend their life cycle and sail the ships. The ships become unsafe and the seafarer has to face more marine accidents.
13. Increased suicides in ships:The instances of suicides by the seafarers in ships due to their frustration in work are increasing every year.
14. Salary not adequate: Considering the salary paid in other industries like Information Technology, cost of living and other professional hazards in shipping industry, the salary paid to the seafarers are not adequate.
15. Disturbed family life: A seafarer is not lucky to remain with his family members throughout his career like his shore based professionals.
16. Health: Due to work related stress, non availability of fresh food, lack of recreational facilities and inadequate medical facilities in ships , the health of a seafarer deteriorates faster.
17. Loneliness, boredom: As the seafarer is subjected to “Bigger ships and lesser Manpower” concept of shipping companies, the seafarer till he signs off has to face loneliness and boredom. This also reduces the productivity of the seafarer. To overcome loneliness and boredom, some of the seafarer slowly becomes alcoholics.
18. Faster turnarounds, no breaks in harbour: Due to better cargo unloading facilities available in ports, ships turnaround time has drastically reduced. Practically ships crew don’t get any breaks in harbours to refresh themselves.
19. Communication issues: Though English is the universal language, as the ships are manned by multicultural crew, communication problems exist between the crew. In addition communication problems exist between ship and shore authorities. At times, this leads to misunderstandings and cause unwanted incidents.
20. Personal safety: A seafarer has to look after himself and if he is not able to get along with ships crew, his life is not safe.
21. Access to medical facilities: Similarly a seafarer is expected to remain fit and remain seaworthy. Medical facilities are inadequate in ships.
22. Anyone can not be a Seafarer: To become a seafarer, a person has to be psychologically fit in addition to medical or physical fitness. To assess the suitability to become a seafarer, psychometric tests are conducted at entry level training of seafarers.
23. No recognition in society: A seafarer due to isolation from his family members gets slowly isolated from the society also and has no recognition in the society.
24. A seafarer is visualised by many in the society as high earning member whereas most of the seafarers spend more than they earn. Many seamen do not think of their retirement while they are working onboard vessels until very late in the career. Large number of seamen who do not save for the future and there career at sea came to a halt abruptly without sufficient notice, causing them and there families difficulties in managing day to day living.
The present situation is that the maritime industry is not attractive among young people. Shipping companies and the industry must address challenges in recruiting and retaining skilled officers and crew [4].It is therefore important to profile maritime industry in a manner that makes it an exciting profession and attractive career alternative for young people.
3. Public initiatives of the Norwegian government for motivation to join the maritime sector
Industrial policies and political framework is very important to the maritime sector. The Norwegian government, a majority coalition dominated by the social democrats, stated in their new governing platform that the maritime strategy stays put. This means a tonnage tax-system and grant arrangements for employment of seafarers in accordance with the state aid guidelines for maritime transportation and a competitive state-supported export financing arrangement in accordance with the OECD regulations.
The focus of the Norwegian government, represented by the Ministry of Trade and Industry is on gaining expertise as a vital element in the development of the maritime industry’s competitiveness and for the ability to create wealth.
The goals set out for the Norwegian maritime industry impose demands on education, the development of expertise and recruitment. These are decisive factors in maintaining and developing the ability to generate quality and innovation in the Norwegian maritime industry.An important measure in meeting the challenges posed by the demand for expertise in maritime industry is the Foundation Norwegian Maritime Expertise (The Expertise Fund). The establishment of the fund in 2003 has resulted in an increase in the number of trainee positions at sea.Foundation Norwegian Maritime Expertise administers a scheme that gives grants in order to have apprentices on board. For the fishing fleet, this support has been limited to training on boats over 24 meters. The scheme has now been expanded to include training also qualified for fishing down to 15 meters. This initiative might encourage more skilled training places for fishing vessels. There will be an important signal to motivate more young people into a skilled marine and maritime education. The fishing vessel owners are asking for skilled labour will contribute to more young people seeking a skilled gateway to the industry. Interaction between marine and maritime sector has promoted new technologies and advanced further development in several important areas. The decision of the Foundation builds up under the cooperation between marine and maritime sector[5].
Regarding maritime education, there is anumber of workplaces demand and/or wishto employ persons holding maritime certificates.The fisheries for example compete withthe shipping industry for applicants with suchqualifications.Access to skilled labour is crucial for the future development in the fisheries sector.
In 2005 the Norwegian maritime industry launched a two-year training programme under the auspices of the Norwegian Ship owner’s Association called Maritime Trainee. The participating companies cover a wide segment of the Norwegian maritime environment. Response has been good both due to a large number of maritime companies offering trainee positions and the large number of well qualified applicants.
The Ministry of Education and Research has launched an initiative plan for science subjects with a particular emphasis on recruitment. A national recruitment campaign was implemented in the spring of 2008 with the intention of reaching young people who would not otherwise opt for science subjects, and in particular female students. The recruitment campaign is co-financed by several parties amongst others: the Ministry of Education and Research, the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Norwegian businesses and labour organisations.
The initiative plan for 2007/2008 is a follow up of the strategy “A joint effort for science subjects 2006-2009”. The Ministry of Education and Research co-operates with Norwegian industry, labour organisations, the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities and the education sector. Good role models, improved contact with industry and focussed recruiting initiatives can result in an increase in recruitment.
4. Private initiatives of Norwegian companies and foundations for motivation to join the maritime sector
Maritimt Forum of Norway was established as a foundation in 1990. Since then, it has been engaged in bringing the urgent needs of the maritime industry, Norwegian seafarers and offshore into the political limelight. This includes promoting the industry outside Norway as well as fostering co-operation among its several hundred members, national authorities and employee organizations, buyers and sellers. The foundation seeks to strengthen contacts within Norway’s maritime cluster, enabling all stakeholders from ship owners to equipment producers to thrive, to enhance their competitiveness and to increase their value. According to the foundation research, there are approximately 97.000 people employed in the maritime sector, Norway’s second largest export industry after the petroleum industry. The Maritime Forum is focused on promoting a positive image of the sector among the Norwegian public and to encourage young people, especially those living in coastal districts, to pursue careers in the industry’s various branches and in offshore. They constitute the group which will ensure Norway’s continued status as a leading maritime nation. The Forum is also working on making a strong case to politicians to take into account the importance of the sector for the national economy and put in place an advantageous competitive framework - long-term supportive policies and operating conditions that will ensure stability and profitability - on par with competing nations [6].
Maritimt Forum Norway has developed the initiative of establishingan information and recruiting campaign that started in January 2007. The recruitment campaign “Ikke for alle” (Not for everyone) was a three-year campaign that had the objective of attracting young people to take up maritime studies. The project was supported by grants from the Foundation Norwegian Maritime Expertise.
The main target was to reach the youth 15 – 19 yearolds and the aim was to inform and getting them to consider a maritime educationand life at sea. The campaign was called “Ikke for alle - en utdanning du kommer langtmed” which means something like: “Not for all – an education that can take you a longway”. A very up to date and functional internet-site has been the centre of thecampaign.The initiative has been a success and a negative trend has been broken. After three years Norway experience an increase in applications for a maritimeeducation by 40 percent.
The website Ikkeforalle.no is designed precisely to competent and motivated young people to consider whether a maritime education is something right for them and whether they want a more practical or theoretical training. In cooperation with the maritime training offices in Norway, Maritimt Forum ensures that young people should be aware of what a maritime education and a profession in the industry entails. Shipping companies and training offices work in addition to facilitating apprenticeships for those students who qualify for it.