WITH the sustainable shipping issue at the top of the maritime agenda, those of you who have not looked at what is going on as part of the Forum for the Future's Sustainable Shipping initiative should check out their website.

NEWS from Reabur.com that 34% of staff are simply too lazy to look for their dream job. In a survey, 38% of respondents were unhappy with their present job and one fifth hated it.

MOVING overseas? Don't know the language? Well the situation might not be as desperate as you think. A recent survey from Berlitz Consulting suggested that learning about the culture in the country you are going to, and what's more, understanding it, is more important than knowing the language.

WE were intrigued to read in Recruiter magazine that a new survey of 2,500 scouts found that 41% of employers surveyed said that the fact the candidate had been a scout favourably influenced their decision to employ him/her.

It is with extreme regret and sadness that we announce the death of our very good friend Fred Doll…

“In the new world of work, unemployment is high yet skilled and talented people are in short supply.”

Apparently, many children today will be the first generation to be worse off than their parents. Imagine a 6 car pile-up – pensions, housing inflation, sovereign debt, unemployment, student debt, mortgage scarcity…well, you can see the point.

Similar sentiment from this year's Maritime Cyprus conference – plenty of gloom and doom of course about medium term prospects from the market but it’s also clear that if we're nothing else, shipping folk are opportunists.

“Sanitising your memory is the name of the game when leaving an old employer” According to author Robert Kelsey, bad mouthing your former employer is a no-no.