A downturn now, but where will US marine industry workers come from in two years?
By IBI Magazine
At yesterday's Conference on Marine Industry Technical Training (COMITT) at IBEX, several experts spoke about the need to attract workers for the marine industry. Despite the current decline in boat sales, said the experts, the need for workers will be even greater when the industry turns around. "When this downturn starts to turn up, my dealership will start selling more boats than ever," said Ed Lofgren, owner of 3A Marine Services in Hingham, Massachusetts, who moderated the event. "We will not have enough qualified people to work in my dealership. This workforce problem has gotten serious and graduated to the point where it is a serious growth inhibitor to this industry." Steven Kitchin, vice president education and training at the New England Institute of Technology (NEIT) and chairman of the Marine Industry Training & Education Council (MITEC), which organised COMITT, said that today's employers need to employ skilled techniques when trying to find new workers. "Today's economy is different than the economy of the past," said Kitchin. "The mindset of people entering college is completely different. We have to change the ways we try to attract people of that age." Kitchin said that the demographics of the US have changed dramatically, ranging from a larger population of minorities, particularly Hispanics, to an aging workforce. "Today's workforce is grayer, more ethnically diverse and nearly equal between the sexes in terms of labor participation rates," he said. "The marine industry is also facing competition for workers from virtually every other industry." Kitchin said that marine companies need to take both internal and external approaches to attracting workers, including creating plans for retaining workers, training and development programs, and internal career ladders. They also need to make use of unemployment offices and secondary schools as well as attracting returning military personnel from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. "If you think the job recruitment process is similar to a 1950s recruitment strategy, then it is destined to fail," said Kitchin. "We can't think one-dimensionally here. It's a three-dimensional problem." Ed Sherman, education officer for ABYC, spoke about the need for strategies to "get in kids' faces" in order to lure them to the marine industry. "We have to elevate our industry to compete effectively against other industry sectors," he said. Sherman said that he attends an annual conference organized by Skills USA that attracts about 15,000 workers. Only 25 of those opted to take the skills test for the marine industry. "We look real small compared to every other industry sector," said Sherman. "As an industry, our presence is not felt in the world." Sherman said that creating charter schools with maritime themes will help develop future workers, and several members of the audience spoke about the growth of their charter schools. One Orlando boatbuilder executive says that they recruit from nearby high schools, and offer college tuition reimbursement programs in order to attract workers. "Looking ahead, we can create some serious attractors for the younger generation on the MITEC website, but we also need to see what more sophisticated industries are doing to attract them," said Sherman. 'We've also got to stop talking to ourselves. We need to reach out beyond our industry to pull new people in." The panel said that MITEC members would continue to discuss the workforce problems and issue recommendations at a future point. "This is not a crisis now," said Kitchin. "But it will be a problem in two or three years."
(6 October 2008)
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