Tag: career at sea

The shipping industry will be facing the highest shortfall of officers to crew the world’s merchant fleet in over a decade by 2026, due to a diminishing attractiveness of a career at sea, coupled with rising man-berth ratios and continued fleet growth, said global shipping consultancy Drewry.

The Union of Greek Shipowners launched a campaign for the new generation, to explore career opportunities offered by the seafaring profession.

Soft skills development is probably the most powerful tool in terms of retention of seafarers in the shipping industry which needs to be more flexible if it wishes to adapt in the post-COVID-19 working environment, experts agreed at a recent CAREER4SEA Talk.

During the CAREER4SEA Talk on leadership at sea, speakers focused on how the crewmembers can use their leadership skills at many levels.

As a result of the rapid rise of digitalization and with automation gaining momentum within shipping, job requirements change. Regarding the maritime employment, during the second virtual CAREER4SEA Talk, speakers focused on the new skills required for young professionals aiming to join the industry.

Shipping’s digital transformation has already advanced, leaving the “cautious” behind with a disadvantage. It is important to bring value by adding the data and tech component, especially to crewing, which is a dynamic environment, argues Mrs Nadia Alegra, Business Development Manager at Seafair manning agency and crewing software provider.

As the shipping organizations are rapidly changing, struggling to attract new talents and have a modern working environment, there is an urgent need for soft skills development. Shipping needs to adopt new methods and techniques on how to improve those abilities, speakers of panel 3 at the last SAFETY4SEA Virtual Forum highlighted.

The pandemic has radically changed our lives; now everyone wishes for life to restore to normal, but we all know that the post-COVID era will have no resemblance with the past. With the vaccinations now occurring across the globe, health officials are optimistic about the outbreak, but the pandemic won’t be over anytime soon. So what that means for shipping? What changes have been affected and what should we expect in the near and long term?

During the years it is observed that the nature of work in every job field, is somehow changing, due to the emerging technologies such as the artificial intelligence, digitalization, automation, cyber security etc. As a result, the skills that employers and companies value and depend on are also transforming, creating a "skills gap". To make it clear, skills gap is the difference among the techniques required for a job and the skills that an employee actually performs. Therefore, because of the skills gap issue, a potential employee may not be able to completely operate the tasks of the job. However, when it comes to the shipping industry, technological advances have also contributed to skills gap issues within the sector, as crews are required to have skills beyond their mandatory maritime qualifications. The present and future challenges faced by the maritime industry will create significant pressure on the present model of manning the maritime industry, both on ships and ashore. Namely, with smart ships dynamically enter into service, there is an increasing demand for a new generation of competent, highly skilled maritime professionals. There are strong indications that new technologies and the resulting social interactions will significantly affect the required core ...

When it comes to work skills, they can be separated into two types: the hard skills and the soft skills. Although they might be different from one another, both of them are necessary for every successful career. However, how can someone develop a soft skill that will help them thrive in their workplace?