The current moderate shortage for ship officers in the world merchant fleet will worsen unless training is increased or measures are taken to address the rate at which seafarers leave the shipping industry.

This is the clear message of a study jointly conducted by the Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO) and International Shipping Federation (ISF), describing the current worldwide supply and demand for seafarers and predicting the likely situation in the next five to ten years.

The BIMCO/ISF 2000 Manpower Update, which the organizations released this April and to be presented during the ISF council meeting in Manila next week, is probably the most comprehensive study of the global supply and demand for  merchant seafarers that has so far been undertaken. The Manila meeting will give ISF members an opportunity to report on their national maritime labor supply situation.

The study says the worldwide supply of seafarers in 2000 is placed at 404,000 officers and 823,000 ratings. The OECD or developed countries of North America, Western Europe and Japan remain the most important source of officers, but the Far East has increased its share and is by far the largest source of ratings.

Building on data amassed by earlier studies conducted in 1990 and 1995, the latest report also anticipates changes and, if appropriate, recommends corrective action.

BIMCO/ISF says the 2000 Update also takes full account of the views of senior executives in the shipping industry, providing a synthesis of academic analysis (using the expertise of Warwick University in the UK) with the practical experience of international operators and ship managers.

The study 's global demand estimates considers detailed changes in the number, size and types of ships in the world fleet as well as revised estimates of the manning levels and back-up ratios (i.e. seafarers on leave, etc) of different national fleets.

'Raw' estimate were calibrated using comprehensive data from almost 200 companies, weighted to reflect a representative sample of the world fleet, BIMCO/ISF explained. It includes levels of recruitment, the nationality and ages of seafarers employed, and estimates of employees that have taken jobs ashore between 1995 and 2000.

Analysis of the data arrived at an estimate of the worldwide demand for seafarers at around 420,000 officers and 599,000 ratings. This translates into a "modest theoretical shortfall of officers required to man the world fleet of 16,000 or four percent of the total workforce. For ratings there continues to be a significant overall surplus, although there are doubts about the extent to which large numbers of these ratings are qualified for international services."
The BIMCO/ISF study noted that recruitment levels increased during the late