Shipping: Employment

The most comprehensive study available of the global supply of seafarers, carried out in 2005 by ISF-BIMCO, estimates that there are 466,000 officers and 721,000 ratings, a total of around 1.2 million seafarers worldwide. At the time, the worldwide demand for seafarers was estimated to be 476,000 officers and 586,000 ratings. Consequently, there seemed to be a shortfall of about 10,000 officers and a surplus of ratings. Increasingly, seafarers are from the east of Asia, the Indian subcontinent and eastern Europe.

Since then, and in the context of an expanding world fleet, industry observers have stressed the increasing shortage of skilled manpower available for employment in shipping. Senior officers are especially in short supply. Attracting quality personnel, training them to the high standards required and keeping them in the industry seems to be the current major challenge of the industry.

See the Related Links to the right for information on different ways in which the ILO is contributing to this issue.