RECESSIONS have a funny way of teaching us a lot about business. At Spinnaker our thirteenth year in business has just come to a close so for us it is time to take stock. We look back on the last year, the last two years in fact, with a sense of some disbelief and not a small amount of relief…

ANOTHER humbling lesson for Spinnaker and for many other employers out there, thanks to the recession, has been learning to improve the recruitment process. When the focus is on costs and performance no-one wants to make a mistake. And when companies have seized the opportunity to “clear out the dead wood” having expanded perhaps a touch too rapidly, recruitment mistakes are fresh in their minds…

In the UK, the tax authorities are warning employers not to use their official CD Rom to run their payroll systems. They must get an updated disc. This follows hot on the heels of the admission that 1.4 million people have been charged the wrong amount of tax under the UK's pay as you earn system…

AS we know, times are tight as far as getting into universities is concerned and getting a first job after you graduate is no picnic. The Graduate Recruitment Bureau has asked graduates how they would select the best candidates from among a group of graduates…

Less than flattering comments about the great British seafarer were reportedly made by Stena's North Sea director Pim de Lange who has been quoted as saying that it was difficult to find UK seafarers unless you wanted chaps with fat bellies and covered in tattoos…

YET another good ISF Manning and Training Conference in September. STCW, the Maritime Labour Convention and criminalisation of seafarers were all under the spotlight with fears of a growing shortfall in seafarer numbers hovering always just beneath the surface…

Words of wisdom from the ISF Manning and Training Conference 2010

As the IMO celebrates the year of the seafarer, it played host to the launch of a new initiative. Seafarers' Rights International is a new centre to advance the rights of seafarers and their legal protection on a worldwide basis…

Much has been made in recent years of the US authorities' aggressive approach to prosecuting so called magic pipe cases against crew members. Many in the industry have been critical of the procedure, by which whistleblowers are used to gain a conviction…