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Gateway Magazine: Mariners wanted

High-paying jobs available, but marine industry in Canada is facing a serious labour shortage
seafarers-flying-angel-club-cc
Vancouver’s Mission to Seafarers Flying Angel Club. The association assists unemployed seamen | Photo: Chung Chow

A looming skilled labour shortage is something that gets a lot of discussion in B.C. business circles. But one area of the economy where that shortage appears to have already become chronic, without garnering a lot of attention, is Canada’s marine industry.

The industry is facing serious shortfalls across the board, from deckhands and cooks to captains, which is why the Seafarers’ Training Institute (STI) has been holding open houses in B.C. recently and talking with the local colleges about getting training programs set up here in B.C.

“Our union hiring halls that we operate there [in B.C.] have absolutely nobody,” says Jim Given, president of the Seafarers’ International Union of Canada. “This is the first year in our history – and we’ve been around since [1938] – that we’ve had vessels tied up because we couldn’t find enough crew. When you’re tying a vessel up, you’re talking $12,000 a day to have the vessel out of service, plus whatever effect it’s having on carrying the commodities to market.”

Phillip Nelson, president of the Council of Marine Carriers, whose members include Seaspan and a number of local independent barge, tug and towboat owner-
operators, tells a similar story.

“We are expecting a shortage,” Nelson says. “I think we’re already in that shortage. It’s something we in the marine industry in general – not just locally but worldwide – have been talking about. Everyone’s been saying, ‘In the next little while we’re going to see this.’ Well, I think we’re already there now.”

And it may get even worse in a few years with the LNG Canada and Trans Mountain pipeline expansion projects. The liquefied natural gas carriers and oil tankers that will serve those projects would be internationally flagged vessels, so Canadians are not likely to be employed on those vessels.

But both of those projects will require increased tug, escort and barge operators, all of which will require trained mariners.

“We’re going to be looking at needing more escort tugs,” Nelson says.

Given blames the sector as a whole for failing to promote the benefits of a career as a merchant mariner.

“These are really good-paying middle-class jobs, but unfortunately our industry has just done a terrible job of promoting ourselves, and young people aren’t even aware that the job is there,” he says. “Our guys in Vancouver that work on some of the bunkering vessels out there, the tug vessels, they’re [making] over $100,000, most of them.”

Typical deckhands start off at $60,000 to $80,000, depending on the vessel they are on. Second mates are paid $120,000 and up.

Aside from the pay rate of merchant mariner jobs, the training offered through the STI – valued at $50,000 – is free, offering another selling point.

“It is free room and board, free tuition, free everything,” Given says.

Recruits accepted into the seafarers training program typically spend 36 weeks at a training institute in Piney Point, Maryland, although the STI has been working with Canadian colleges to get training programs in Canada.

Seafarers who complete the program qualify for jobs on Canadian-flagged vessels. While some of the jobs might be on bulk carriers or other international shipping vessels, most of the Canadian-flagged ships operate in Canadian waters – on the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway and the east and west coasts.

For the local marine industry that Nelson’s council represents, the training is different, and it’s not free. On the other hand, job hopefuls don’t have to leave B.C. to get work.

“The nice thing about this type of work is that you can live pretty well wherever you want,” Nelson says. “We have seafarers who live in the Okanagan.”

Mariners working on domestic marine vessels like tugs, barges and cargo ferries require Transport
Canada-approved certification, like a bridge watchman’s certificate. The training is offered locally through the British Columbia Institute of Technology, Camosun College in Victoria and the Western Maritime Institute in Ladysmith at a cost of about $2,000.

Mariners working on vessels plying international waters would typically work seven days a week for three months, then have a month off, Given says. Mariners working the B.C. coast might have a work rotation that is 28 days on and 28 days off.

While graduates are virtually guaranteed work, they might not get a job in B.C. They could end up in Newfoundland or as far away as Brazil.

“It’s not for everybody, because you are away from home, but those people that get into it and like, love it,” Given says. “We don’t hide the fact that it’s hard work. You’re going to get your hands dirty. But there’s lots of room for advancement. It’s a solid career.”

One of the challenges to training is that working vessels don’t have berths approved for trainees, Nelson says.

“We need to get some changes in the law to permit training berths on our vessels.”

Globally, according to Drewry, the supply of seafarers grew significantly between 2013 and 2016. The average annual growth rate in the number of seafarers during that time was around 4.6%, according to the U.K.-based shipping consultancy.

But Latifat Igbinosun, a Drewry senior market analyst, said during the company’s annual manning review and 2018-19 forecast that rate slowed to 1.1% during 2017 and to 0.4% at the beginning of 2018.

Igbinosun says growth in the global seafarer population has slowed in part because being a merchant sailor “is becoming a less attractive option as a career path in some of [the countries that provide the majority of crew on freighters] because there are better options offered by shore-based career paths within those nations.”

Drewry estimates that the global seafarer population stood at approximately 1.53 million as of 2018.