Investment for the future
Posted on | December 3, 2009 | No Comments
It is difficult to prescribe (or even advise) how others ought to arrange their commercial affairs during a shipping recession, especially one that could be of longer duration than the overlying trade downturn. Every enterprise is different, and the strategies employed to cut ones’ coat according to the available cloth are many and varied.
But there should surely be very great caution exercised before permitting the cost cutters to do their work on the training budget. To hack back on cadet training, or ruthlessly refuse to employ young people you have spent several years training is akin to desperate agriculturalists eating the seedcorn, and condemning themselves to starvation in the future.
The shipping industry has barely recovered its reputation from the last deep and long recession, much of which was self-inflicted, but which saw recruitment and training at a historical low for some 15-20 years. The effects of this were several, but all are with us still today.
Firstly, during this extended period when the industry was bumping along at the bottom, suffering from its surpluses, both sea and shore staff was infected with a relentless search for cheapness. This manifested itself in a failure to recruit the bright young people which an essential industry requires to replenish itself each generation, and the disgrace of the “minimum maintenance” regime. Many of the talented people already in the industry left for pastures new during this period, in sectors where growth and prosperity, along with scope for their ambitions, were to be found.
Secondly, the passage of years have remorselessly seen the industry workforce age, as a result of this recruitment “holiday”, along with a situation where those companies which have still tried to maintain training have been outnumbered by those prepared to “poach” staff. Loyalties and esprit de corps have been strained if not destroyed, and there is a high degree of cynicism in what has become once again an industry dependent upon casual labour.
The situation, and the manning crisis facing the industry has been long recognised, and during the first years of the 21st century, it might have been thought that determined efforts were being made to upgrade the status of seafaring as a career where quality, education, stability and reputation were seen to be important. There were moves to “sell” seafaring as a respectable entry point to a whole career in the maritime world. Cadet training berths, even cadet ships were increased in number. The IMO’s “Go to Sea” campaign might be considered an important international endorsement, at the very highest level, of this genuine need to recruit the best possible people to sail on the growing world fleet.
All of which is being put at risk if the shipping industry starts to row back on its compulsion to train, to provide for a new generation of cadets and junior officers. Too many people recall the last disgraceful situation when even cadets were being laid off and an industry’s reputation for playing fast and loose with the careers of its young people was exposed. The reputation of an essential industry is at stake once again, and more people need to be aware of this. Training is an investment for the future. Without it, there isn’t one!
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