Ports:
Employment

Training

For the last few decades, the focus of the port sector has been mainly on technological advances that make productivity less dependent on human effort, knowledge and skills. But recent years have witnessed a growing acknowledgement by the port industry that appropriate attention must also turn to performance improvement through people. Ports should be seen as "socio-technical" systems because, in practice, operations in ports are carried out by a partnership between human beings and technology. This partnership, however, can only be successful if appropriate emphasis is given to Human Resources Management (HRM) and particularly the training component of HRM, an often over-looked area that can have a significant impact on port performance and the living and working conditions of the workforce in ports.

New job profiles (multitask workers/multiskilled operations) appearing in modern ports, new technologies and work methods, the creation of more job and advancement opportunities, new security, safety & health requirements in ports dictate the need for continuous development and implementation of appropriate training and retraining programmes.

The ILO, in order to support its constituents to provide quality training to portworkers has developed a number of training packages in various subjects. For all training opportunities offered by the ILO in the port sector please click the following link: "ILO training opportunities in the port sector" (pdf, 143k).