It’s vital for maritime organisations to understand how they compare against their peers when it comes to staff turnover. This enables an organisation to identify what they are doing well and what can be done better.

Spinnaker’s Maritime HR Association which boasts 110 ‘members’ recently carried out an ‘Information Exchange’ looking at Staff Turnover in the maritime industry.

The findings show that in 2025 the industry will see fewer maritime organisations increasing their headcount than in previous years.  In 2025, 25% of organisations will be looking to increase their headcount compared to 35% in 2024. Furthermore,10% of organisations are looking at reducing headcount in 2025 compared to 8% in 2024.

When looking at the data in further detail, we can see that 50% of shipmanagers are looking to increase their headcount in 2025 compared to 13% in 2024.  Only 15% of shipowners will increase their headcount in 2025.

Interestingly, no organisations operating solely in the dry bulk market will look to increase their headcount in 2025, compare this to 8% in the tanker market.

When it comes to retention, employees with either 3-, 5- or 6-years’ experience are the most likely to leave an organization, and 30% of survey participants state that employees aged between 25 and 39 are the most likely to leave.

A quarter of organisations struggle to retain staff in a particular job family, with over half identifying the Technical and Marine job family as being the most difficult to retain.

For more information on joining the Maritime HR Association which allows access to information such as staff turnover in the maritime sector, please visit our salary benchmarking pages.