The maritime industry is grappling with a growing wave of recruitment challenges – ranging from an aging workforce and skill shortages to evolving regulatory demands and fierce global competition.

It isn’t a secret that the sector has faced a shortage of skilled workers who are young, tech savvy and want to devote their entire careers to this industry. More so, this has been a traditionally male-dominated industry that does not lend itself well to raising a family.

The desires of a new generation of workers have impacted the maritime industry hugely. Qualified candidates often have a choice of many job offers, giving seafarers plenty to think about.

As a result the maritime industry has to be rethink its strategies, simplify operations and use technology to its best effect for more efficient hiring and better workforce management.

The past decade has seen the seafaring market undergo massive changes, yet shipping companies act like they have the luxury of choosing from three applicants fighting for every job.

In reality, the opposite is true with each qualified candidate being able to choose from three other jobs.

Today seafarers can easily see the jobs crew managers advertise on recruitment websites, giving them the ability to gauge their market value. This has changed employee behaviour; seafarers are better informed of their choices and their own personal needs play a bigger part in what they do.

Generations view things very differently: the older generation favour stability and a guaranteed income and not taking risks. Those under 30 seek out new opportunities on a regular basis and are not averse to risk.

The younger generation would prefer to explore new opportunities and for them, that need is greater than having stability.

They have a priority of personal freedom and feel less loyalty to one employer for a lifetime. They know there are jobs out there for them, and will choose one over another if the first doesn’t meet their needs.

This change in habits has a direct impact on crew planning. Where a seafarer can reject a role because it might conflict with a family event or even a birthday, it shows the small details matter.

We have seen how a life at sea does not suit many young people today and what they hope for, which then creates a high turnover of staff – a trend we can only expect to increase.

Danica Crewing surveys from 2019 and 2023–2024 have shown some 98% of seafarers had searched online on job boards and via recruiters for their next career move once they had returned home.

As an answer, many operators had taken to increasing salaries and offer shorter contracts as a way to attract new talent. Yes this may work initially, but they are simply short-term solutions.

It is clear that we need to rethink our approach, as low-retention is an operational risk.

One way of helping new starters to integrate is to make operations far more intuitive and user-friendly; it’s a strategy some operators have chosen to adopt.

From a company point-of-view simplifying operations across both industry and internal systems creates consistency, while also making daily tasks easier.

A more holistic approach needs to be taken by companies when they are screening new staff, assessing not only qualifications and experience, but also cognitive abilities and problem-solving skills.

Companies need to be seeking out people who have the ability to think critically and manage in an effective way, as opposed to those who simply follow instructions. This is the key to creating a resilient and adaptable crew.

It sounds like an incredible statistic, but the Danica’s Crew Managers Survey 2024/25 showed less than two-thirds (60%) of shipping companies possessed a crew strategy covering recruitment, screening and retention.

On top of that, it can take up to a year for a new superintendent or captain to become fully productive in his role – which makes it essential to have a strategy.

If companies want to secure the best staff, they need to accept that a high retention rate is no longer possible in the way it used to be.

As such, they must change course and come up with a new strategy to make them attractive in the marketplace, such as:

• Wages slightly over the market average; but no need to offer the highest
• Simplify the application process. Make it a pleasant experience by removing barriers like filling in long application forms. Detailed information can be collected later in the process
• Accept that staff based at sea will leave and a high retention is no longer achievable
• As a fluctuation is unavoidable, the onboarding process for new officers must be easier. Simplify your procedures and systems making it easier for new hands to learn how you work. ISM systems tend to grow over time, often with additional procedures added after incidents. We need to ask the question: are these procedures necessary and can crew members understand them?
• Make sure you have the correct IT systems and apps to support seafarers and make them simple – make the tasks assigned to officers easier rather than just adding additional workload and reporting
• Carry out long-term crew planning to ensure correct utilisation of crew resources. Be sure when accepting a request for extension of the tenure from a crew onboard, that this will not create a surplus or shortage in the planning at a later stage – data from Danica Crewing shows that almost a quarter (22%) of crew leave because there’s no available opportunity for them
• Move from ineffective appraisal report systems issued at the end of the seafarer’s tenure to competency development systems
• Work to build and protect your brand as a preferred employer in the crewing market. Negative comments on social media or on crew portals are very damaging

The nature of how the workforce operates changes constantly, and as it does so, the previous methods of keeping crew within the industry like pay rises and shorter contracts are failing to have the desired effect.

Instead, companies need to turn their attention to user-friendly operations and strategic crew planning, along with developing adaptable, problem-solving staff.

Aligning operational needs with the changing expectations of seafarers is the key to securing the services of a stable and capable maritime workforce for years to come.