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Globally, the shortage of skills needed to keep the world’s marine fleets negotiating international seas safely and efficiently has become so critical that the International Maritime Organization (IMO) launched a “Go to Sea” campaign to attract entrants to the shipping industry.

Some countries in Europe, like Germany, have also launched special campaigns to not only attract new entrants to the industry, but also to attract foreign nationals to the local industry by relaxing immigration requirements.

It is becoming clear that the international war on skills across the board, despite the present global economic downturn, has well and truly gone to sea. It is particularly waged on the engineering front.

“We are at present experiencing a slowdown in the demand for shipping, with the turmoil in the world financial markets. We hear that Europe is now technically in recession. Is this therefore the right time to be actively seeking to increase the pool of trained seafarers?

“We are convinced that it is. Ships will continue to be built, and these need to be manned. Moreover, this is a campaign to ensure that we have the resources of trained seafarers which the industry needs, not just now, but in the long term. Whatever the scenario may be in the next couple of years, shipping remains a growth business, and we need a constantly increasing pool of properly trained seafarers,” said Tony Mason, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Shipping/International Shipping Federation at the launch of the IMO campaign in November last year.

“Promoting a career in shipping needs to be carried out at many different levels, internationally and nationally, as well as of course by the individual shipping companies.

“The international industry associations have a number of initiatives geared towards providing information for those interested in a career at sea. These include information directly accessible on the Internet, as well as material which can be used by those promoting careers at a national or local level.

“However, every country is different in its culture, its education and training systems, and its affinity with the maritime world.

“It is therefore important that national associations and ship owners initiate and support their own promotion and recruitment campaigns. This is already happening in some countries, but undoubtedly more needs to be done”, he said.

Germany is a good example where shipping has become the latest victim of a “national disease” experienced in almost every developed and developing country in the world – a rapidly worsening skills shortage. Shipping is only a small facet of a far bigger problem and is experiencing stiff competition from just about every other major economic sector.

Engineers, in particular, are in increasingly short supply. Finding them has become a serious bottleneck for industrial development across the globe.

In Germany, Alexanda Pohl – one of only five women in that country to hold the coveted “patent” wish, which entitles its holder after many years of training to command the world’s largest vessels as captain, spends most of her time as a recruiter.

She is employed by the German Shipowners’ Federation, travelling inside the country to recruit officers and engineers for a rapidly expanding commercial fleet. For her employer, she is clearly more valuable on land, addressing schoolchildren and attending job fairs rather than sailing the high seas.

On the broader front, the German government during 2008 adopted a package of measures, including relaxing immigration requirements for highly trained staff to open up (until then) a largely closed labour market. But with the keen international competition for existing skills, attracting foreign graduates and otherwise trained staff will not solve the problem.

While a career at sea renders above-average income, it is not just about the financial reward, said Mason in his address to the IMO, “We need to ensure that we have well motivated seafarers who will do an excellent job in the roles for which they have been trained. Job satisfaction is equally important.

“Shipping can offer career progression, both up the promotional ladder at sea, but also with the prospect of jobs ashore where the skills acquired will be both valued and rewarded.

“Shipping is big business, and it is also a growth business. Notwithstanding the challenges of economic cycles, in the long run shipping is a good business to be in,” he said.

The current drives to recruit young people for careers, coupled with the acute shortages, are not without risks.

During an interview reported mid last year, Pohl said that shipowners are recruiting younger and younger people as technical officers, like marine engineers, in positions that “frankly would require a lot more experience”.

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