Global shipping industry faces worker shortage

[somone]

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/25/business/la-fi-maritime-jobs-20101125

Global shipping industry faces worker shortage
Employers are worried about whether there will be enough seafarers to operate ships, truck drivers to haul freight and administrators to run warehouses and distribution centers.
By Ronald D. White, Los Angeles Times

After an unwelcome reprieve caused by the global recession, employers in international trade again are growing concerned about whether there will be enough qualified candidates to fill the next generation of cargo and logistics jobs. A spate of reports over the last two years has conjured up images of ships with too few seafarers to operate them, truck-ready freight with too few drivers to do the hauling and warehouse and distribution centers without enough qualified administrators to run them.

The worldwide shipping industry, which employs more than 1 million people to crew its technologically advanced vessels, is having trouble training enough seafarers, the International Maritime Organization said recently. It forecast a shortfall of 27,000 to 46,000 ships' officers in the near future. The U.S. trucking industry will need to hire about 200,000 drivers this year and another 200,000 by the end of 2011 to keep up with expected growth as more and more drivers hang up their keys, according to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.

"This is a growth industry and we're facing a lot of retirements," said Tom Good, a director of sales and marketing for Matson Navigation Co., an Oakland shipping outfit with significant operations in Southern California. "Businesses are worried, and we have a serious need for an educated workforce who understands what we do." It might seem odd to talk about an impending workforce shortage in what has been a mostly weak economic recovery. But shortages are looming in every sector of the maritime industry and international trade just as world economies creep back into the black after the worst global recession since World War II.

"A ship can be built in two years, but it takes a minimum of three years to properly train someone to work on it," said Bill Davis, senior vice president for Wells Fargo Insurance Services. "The gap continues to widen and the impact on cargo, equipment and lives has already reached unacceptable levels." The squeeze will be felt strongly in Southern California, where the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handle more than 40% of the nation's imported goods. Greatwide Logistics Services is one of the companies already feeling the pinch. The trucking company hauls steel, groceries and apparel for clients throughout California but is struggling to maintain its roster of 5,000 drivers as older drivers retire...

[theophilus]

1. Maybe they should offer decent hours, conditions, and salaries? Get hiring you bastids! n/t

[Monk06]

2. If they stop the slave labor conditions aboard ocean going ships they might attract

seaman. Being imprisoned aboard a ship for sometimes years
at a time without seeing a paycheque tends to effect morale.

[cloudbase]

3. That's not a shocker.

I'm a retired merchant mariner. When I started out, the job was mostly enjoyable and the money was decent. Ships actually spent some time in port. We worked hard and we played hard.

Now, ships are in and out so fast that the job is all work. The regulatory and legal burdens are incredible, and the money hasn't really kept pace with those increased burdens on mariners.

The money used to be a reasonable premium for time spent away from home. That differential is gone, and with it the reason to go to sea for a living. A person can make the same money (though not have as much off time) and be home every night.

It's not a career path I'd suggest to a young person these days.

[Ikonoklast]

4. I see they have the propaganda out there again about the so-called 'driver shortage'.

There is no such thing.

In this country, there are plenty of people with CDL's that are perfectly qualified for employment in the trucking industry. They are no longer employed in trucking by choice; the crappy pay, 24/7/365 work schedule, employers indifferent or downright hostile to employees having any sort of personal life, overall abysmal working conditions at many of the larger non-unionized carriers...it's a long list that anyone in the business can fill you in on.


This is all about letting foreign trucks carry freight on American roads, with cheap foreign labor driving those trucks.

Oh, and Greatwide Logistics? The company that just came out of bankruptcy due to bad management? Oh yeah, your future is assured with them.