On board labour conditions and Spanish seafarers shortfallThe Galician seafarers experience

Resumen

Despite that maritime transport makes about 90% of freight internationally, and the world fleet has maintained a growth rate of around 1% per annum over the last decades, increasing labour demand in the sector, the last study on supply and demand for worldwide mariners published by BIMCO and ISF, shows that already in 2010 there was a shortfall on the number of available officers to approximately 14.000. Also, the lack of trained seafarers, apart from having negative consequences for the safety of navigation, also results in gradual lack of staff with the expertise and experience at the professional level, and qualified for cross ground activities related to the maritime domain, such as inspection of ships, surveillance, management and routeing, rescue and pilotage. In the particular case of Spain, Spanish shipping companies are reporting an increasing difficulty to recruit Spanish experienced seafarers in the last years. It seems clear that there exists a series of determinant factors in the reduction of the number of persons who follow the maritime career: the slightly attractive image of the merchant marine, the complexity of the seafarer professional career, and the increasing hardness of life on board. The objectives of this article are to study the current maritime labour market condition and the current on board living and working conditions. With such a purpose a questionnaire on working and living conditions on board was designed and distributed among graduates from the Higher Technical College of Nautical Science and Marine Engineering from University of A Coruña. The results of this questionnaire give us the professionals’ main reasons to follow or to abandon a maritime career at sea.