To Address Shortage of Maritime Officers, Industry Turns to PR

The shortage is expected to increase to 27,000 by 2015, or about six percent, according to the study commissioned by the International Shipping Federation and BIMCO, the world’s biggest private shipping organization.

Ratings, on the other hand, have an oversupply of about 20 percent, or between 135,000 to 167,000.

International Maritime Employers Committee president Ian Sherwood believes that the demand for officers were higher than what the study had indicated as a result of the faster delivery of the new and much larger vessels.

It takes around a year to construct a new vessel, but it would take four to eight years to produce a competent seafarer, he said.

This means, the industry has to work harder to respond to the needs.

Trainee officers and engineers need three to five years to qualify for the junior ranks and up to eight years to reach a senior level.

Supply

THE Philippines supplies about 28 percent of the world’s fleet, currently the largest by nationality with about 250,000, for both ratings and officers combined.

Far second are crew from the Indian sub-continent, with just over 100,000.

India, however, has started marketing its seafarers to international shipping firms.

According to the presentation of Rajaish Bajpaee, president and managing director of Eurasia Group, during the Second Lloyds Ship Manager (LSM) Manning and Training in India Conference last March, most of the shipping firms are relying on India as a favored source of its current and future seafarer demand.

“India has the means to satisfy the numbers shortage and the Indian academic system provides the strongest foundation for building high standards of skills, initiatives, professionalism and leadership required of the modern seafarers,” he said.

But since the Philippines has the lead in the number of crews on board, and a promising future for those still in schools, international shipping firms are egging their local units or affiliates to effect significant shifts on how the country and the government do its measures on producing a competent crew, in a short span of time.

IMEC has proposed a program to speed up the process of a cadet to become an officer, without sacrificing competency level, by advanced training in school and on-board a vessel.

The number crunching of the domestic manning firms –despite the disparity of the available data– showed that the industry can only produce a total of 28,905 officers ranging from captain to chief engineer from chief mate to first engineer to officer-in-charge positions.

While international shipping firms’ efforts have yet to bear fruit, affiliates are already moving, to the point that manning and other shipping firms are reaching out to the public.

For instance, last November, InterManager, an international association of various ship management firms, called on a press conference to go side by side with the group’s meeting in Manila.

Image

INTERNATIONAL Shipmanagers’ Association (InterManager) president Ole B. Stene said they want to promote the image of the seafaring profession in the entire Philippines.

Stene, who is also managing director of Aboitiz-Jebsen Bulk Transport Inc., said the seafaring profession is viewed as only for the weak, or poorly-performing students.

Parents tend to discourage their children to take the profession, he added.

Stene sad the move to refurbish the image of the profession is aimed at recruiting the brightest from the pool of students to become seafarers.

InterManager, however, still doesn’t have any specific idea on how to carry out such task.

Stene said they plan to promote the profession to graduating high school students starting next year.

The group has joined forces with local group Filipino Association for Mariners’ Employment (Fame) to carry out the plan.

Fame, however, wanted to bring their message of sanitizing the image of the seafarers using the mainstream media.

With no idea of how to carry out the task, Fame president Samuel Lim called for a meeting with reporters and editors covering the shipping and manning industry.

That meeting has been regularly held since November and Lim is banking on this to develop some mechanism for implementation of the media blitz sometime next year.

This move may mean a resurgence in news coverage of the industry or advertising by companies involved.

While that may spell good news for media agencies in the short term, there hasn’t been a study on its benefit for the seafarers or their profession in the long run.

Then again, image, for some, is everything.