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By Shizue Tomoda
Table 1.1.8 shows the global export of various fishery commodities for 1987-92 in metric tons. Except for frozen, dried and salted fish, other fish exports grew steadily. The figures show that the demand for fishery products continues to rise globally and has accelerated competition among fishing countries, which has unfortunately led to the gradual depletion of world fish stocks.
Fish stock in the ocean was once believed to be inexhaustible. A declining world catch in recent years is a warning to many fishing countries to enforce certain rules multilaterally to conserve the stocks. Today, the most valuable stocks, such as Atlantic cod and blue-fin tuna, as well as Indian Ocean shrimp, are said to be nearly depleted, so an increasing share of the global catch is made up of species previously ignored, or of small fry of the big species. Catches in the North Sea, for example, are as small as in the 1970s.
Surprisingly, and contrary to the trend of a declining catch experienced globally, the world fish catch reached a new record of 106 million tons in 1994. This was due partly to strong growth in aquaculture output in China, and partly to the expansion of distant water catches by some countries, including China.
Fish-producing countries should not be overly encouraged by this new record. They still need to intensify their efforts to protect global fish stocks. "Technical conservation measures", urged by many experts, include the use of fishing nets with larger mesh sizes and panels that allow certain species and young and small fish to escape. Improved fish farming techniques are also recommended.
Table 1.1.8. World production and exports of preserved and processed fishery commodities
(net product weight in 1,000 metric tons)
| Commodity | Production/
export |
1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | ||||||
| Fish fillets, fresh or chilled | P | 326 | 316 | 301 | 300 | 309 | 304 | ||||||
| E | 77 | 119 | 124 | 133 | 145 | 170 | |||||||
| Fish fillets, frozen | P | 1 569 | 1 634 | 1 552 | 1 774 | 1 793 | 1 676 | ||||||
| E | 912 | 854 | 952 | 1 081 | 1 130 | 1 157 | |||||||
| Fish, frozen (excluding fillets) | P | 11 852 | 12 811 | 12 936 | 12 887 | 12 546 | 12 543 | ||||||
| E | 3 401 | 4 165 | 4 117 | 4 791 | 4 783 | 4 520 | |||||||
| Fish, dried, salted or pickled | P | 3 365 | 3 478 | 3 170 | 3 304 | 3 278 | 2 974 | ||||||
| E | 440 | 429 | 446 | 429 | 429 | 387 | |||||||
| Fish, smoked | P | 854 | 854 | 849 | 855 | 881 | 554 | ||||||
| E | 33 | 38 | 38 | 44 | 48 | 59 | |||||||
| Crustaceans and mollusca (all forms) | P | 2 224 | 2 110 | 2 460 | 2 350 | 2 492 | 2 492 | ||||||
| E | 1 465 | 1 549 | 1 644 | 1 653 | 1 866 | 1 989 | |||||||
| Fish products and preparations1 | P | 5 453 | 5 560 | 5 729 | 5 827 | 5 797 | 5 390 | ||||||
| E | 1 068 | 1 156 | 1 257 | 1 276 | 1 359 | 1 334 | |||||||
| 1 Whether or not in airtight containers.
Source: FAO: Fishery statistics, commodities, 1992, Vol. 75, Rome, 1994. | |||||||||||||
Many countries do not have breakdowns of employment data. Even when four-digit data exist, many countries have their own occupational or industrial classification system or their data are somewhat fragmented, which is why statistics are not often comparable internationally. Nevertheless, they are useful indicators of the situation and trend for the industries concerned.
The industries covered are classified under codes 3111 (slaughtering, preparing and preserving meat) and 3114 (canning, preserving and processing fish, crustacea and similar foods) under Revision 2 of the United Nations' International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) of all economic activities.
Included under ISIC 3111 are: activities in abattoirs and meat-packing plants such as killing, dressing and packing cattle, hogs, sheep, lambs, horses, poultry, rabbits and small game for meat; processing and packing activities such as curing, smoking, salting, pickling, packing in airtight containers and quick-freezing; the manufacture of sausage casing, meat soups, meat puddings and pies; and the rendering and refining of lard and other edible animal fats.
The activities covered under ISIC 3114 are: salting, drying, dehydrating, smoking, curing, pickling, canning, or quick-freezing fish, shrimps, oysters, clams, crabs, and other seafoods; and the production of fish and seafood soups and specialities. Also included are the processing activities of fish and seafood only on factory-type vessels.
Under the newer version (Revision 3) of the UN's ISIC codes, published in 1990, code 1511 is assigned to the sector covering the production, processing and preserving of meat and meat products, and code 1512 to the processing and preserving fish and fish products. However, many of the member States that collect four-digit data have not switched to the new code numbers, and unlike some industries, there has been little change in the activities included under codes 1511 and 1512 from those under 3111 and 3114. Hence, the above description of the activities covered in this study is based on Revision 2.
Table 1.2.1 gives the numbers of establishments in the Australian meat and seafood processing industries by branch, and the numbers of employees by gender for 1986/87-1988/89. The numbers of establishments in all branches increased in the second year, but decreased in the third year, probably due to mergers formed because of intensified competition. The numbers of workers in these branches, except poultry, also stagnated or declined slightly. However, because of a rise in the number of poultry workers, the total employment in these branches increased a little.
Workers in the meat processing and preparation branches were mostly men, and the majority of poultry and seafood sectors were women. The proportion of female workers in the latter sectors declined, possibly due in part to a slow down in the meat sectors, which might have encouraged men to seek jobs in sectors that had been traditionally for women. Another set of data, based on the labour force survey and provided by the Government of Australia, give a different picture than that in table 1.2.1. According to these data, the total employment of "meat tradespersons (ASCO 4701)" for May 1988 was 31,374, which declined to 27,145 by 1993, but recovered to 31,534 by 1995.
According to the explanation provided, "meat tradesperson" included workers in the meat, poultry and smallgoods industries, which means that the total employment in this set of data for 1988 was much lower than that presented in table 1.2.1. Moreover, according to the figures on gender breakdown, there were only 155 women as opposed to 31,219 men working in 1988. By 1995, there were 475 women and 31,059 men. Despite the fact that the number of female workers tripled between 1988 and 1995, their proportion in this set of data is still very low compared with the figures in the table.
Table 1.2.1. Number of establishments and employees in the Australian meat and seafood-processing industries, by branch and gender (employees in thousands)
| Branch | 1986-87 | 1987-88 | 1988-89 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Establishment | Employees | Establishment | Employees | Establishment | Employees | |||||||||||||||||||
| Male | Female | Total | Male | Female | Total | Male | Female | Total | ||||||||||||||||
| Meat, except small goods | 379 | 2 4.9 | 4.9 | 29.8 | 392 | 25.5 | 5.0 | 30.0 | 385 | 25.0 | 4.5 | 29.5 | ||||||||||||
| Poultry | 115 | 4.1 | 4.8 | 8.9 | 121 | 4.0 | 4.6 | 8.6 | 111 | 5.5 | 5.6 | 1 1 . 1 | ||||||||||||
| Bacon, ham and others | 125 | 4.8 | 2.2 | 7.0 | 135 | 4.8 | 2.1 | 6.9 | 118 | 4.7 | 2.1 | 6.8 | ||||||||||||
| Seafood | 91 | 1.4 | 2.2 | 3.6 | 105 | 1.6 | 2.1 | 3.7 | 94 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 3.5 | ||||||||||||
| Total | 710 | 35.2 | 14.1 | 49.3 | 753 | 35.9 | 13.8 | 49.7 | 708 | 36.9 | 14.0 | 50.9 | ||||||||||||
| Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics: Manufacturing industry: Details of operations, Australia, Catalogue No. 82030, 1986-89 issues, Canberra. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Employment in the meat industry, including poultry, in the European Communities (EC) grew at a rate of 1.5 per cent for 1987-92, while total employment was 436,685 in 1992. On the other hand, a total of 82,893 workers were employed in 1992 in the EC's fish processing and preserving industries, after a 0.3 per cent annual decline in the same period.17 How do they compare with the situations in the EU member States?
According to table 1.2.2, employment in the meat and fish processing sectors in Belgium grew by 7.6 and 8.5 per cent respectively, between 1987 and 1992. However, employment in the fish industry declined by 3 per cent during 1989-92, while that in meat rose by 2.5 per cent. These figures were more or less in line with the trend reported for the EU as a whole. As for breakdown by gender, women made up about one-half of the workforce in the fish industry, but were less than one-third in the meat industry. The increase in both men and women in the meat industry is due mostly to the expansion in the poultry industry.
Table 1.2.2. Employment in the meat and fish processing industries in Belgium
| Industry | Gender | 1987 | 1989 | 1990 | 1992 | |||||
| Slaughter and preparation and | Male | | 9 401 | 9 214 | 9 490 | |||||
| production of meat products 1 | Female | | 3 179 | 3 304 | 3 409 | |||||
| Total | 11 988 | 12 580 | 12 518 | 12 899 | ||||||
| Preparation and production | Male | | 626 | 607 | 602 | |||||
| of fishery products | Female | | 606 | 642 | 591 | |||||
| Total | 1 100 | 1 232 | 1 249 | 1 193 | ||||||
| 1 Including poultry workers and those in the public sector as well.
Source: 1987 data: Provided by the Government of Belgium for the ILO Second Session of the Food and Drink Industries Committee, Dec. 1991. 1989-92 data: Ministère de l'Emploi et du travail: La population active en Belgique, 1. estimation au 30 juin, 1989-92 series, Brussels. | ||||||||||
Data on the entire country of Brazil are not available. The latest employment figures in the meat, poultry and fish industries in the state of Rio Grande do Sul were 5,230, 10,502 and 3,500, respectively, according to the Labour Ministry. Of these, about 80 per cent of meat workers were men, and 90 per cent of poultry workers and 80 per cent of fish processing workers were women. The male-female breakdown is similar to that in many countries. In the state of Parana, the latest available information shows 8,720 workers in poultry, of which about 80 per cent were men, and 3,934 workers in the meat industry, where both men and women are equally represented. No information was available on the fish industry.
The data in table 1.2.3 on Canada show that the employment in the meat and poultry industries combined rose sharply between 1994 and 1995, after a few years of stagnation. Employment in the fish industry declined steadily from 1991-93. Data were missing for 1994-95. Increased employment in meat and poultry was due largely to the expanded production of poultry meat, despite a decline in beef and veal production, as shown in tables 1.1.2 and 1.1.4. The declined employment in the fish industry is a reflection of a diminished catch, as presented in table 1.1.6.
Table 1.2.3. Employment in the meat and poultry and fish products industries in Canada (March data; in thousands)
| Industry | 199 1 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 19951 | ||||||
| Meat/poultry products | 37.2 | 41.7 | 41.7 | 41.6 | 48.3 | ||||||
| Fish products | 17.0 | 16.3 | 13.8 | -2 | - | ||||||
| 1 Preliminary data.
2 Data on the fish products industry no longer appear in Employment, earnings and hours from 1994 issues. Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Division: Employment, earnings and hours, April issues 1991-94 and March issue 1995, Ottawa, Canada. | |||||||||||
According to the information provided by the Ministry of Internal Trade in China, the meat and poultry processing sectors employ about 370,000 workers, of which men make up 57.5 per cent.
Table 1.2.4 shows the employment trend and the change in the number of establishments in the meat and poultry sectors in France. The number of establishments increased temporarily from 1987 to 1988 in the processing and preparation of meat products and slaughtering and processing of poultry, but then declined in both sectors. In slaughtering of animals, it decreased steadily. Employment in all these branches rose from 1987 to 1988, after which it declined in slaughtering of animals and in processing and preparation of meat products. In slaughtering and processing of poultry, it continued to expand till 1989, and then stagnated. The decline in the number of establishments and the employment trend are probably the reflection of intensified competition resulting in mergers and acquisitions of establishments, which subsequently affected the employment level.
Table 1.2.4. Number of establishments and employees in the meat industry in France (employees in thousands)
| Industry | Establishment/
employees |
1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1991 | |||||
| Slaughter | Establishment | 1219 | 1195 | 1118 | 991 | |||||
| Employees | 41.8 | 45.5 | 40.4 | 39.6 | ||||||
| Processing/preparation | Establishment | 1354 | 1374 | 1309 | 1247 | |||||
| of meat products | Employees | 62.8 | 68.1 | 67.4 | 63.6 | |||||
| Slaughtering/processing | Establishment | 410 | 435 | 419 | 385 | |||||
| of poultry | Employees | 30.1 | 32.8 | 34.9 | 34.7 | |||||
| Total | Establishment | 2983 | 3004 | 2846 | 2623 | |||||
| Employees | 134.7 | 146.3 | 142.7 | 137.9 | ||||||
| Source: INSEE, Ministère de l'Economie, République Française: Résultats No. 367-368-369, Emploi-Revenus, Nos. 76-77-78, Feb. 1995. | ||||||||||
Notes:
17 EU: op. cit.
