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Mærsk laying off Danes
a blow to recruitment efforts

The Danish giant A. P. Møller-Mærsk did not do anything good for the recruitment of young people to the maritime cluster in Denmark at the beginning of February. A. P. Møller-Mærsk then announced that 200 Danish seafarers on Danish flagged vessels would be replaced by what is called “an international crew”. The 200 catering officers and deck ratings of Danish nationality will be replaced by mainly Filipino or perhaps Chinese, who will be the new hit on the international crew market.

The big company says that it has to look at all possible costs in all corners of the company, but the red figures in Maersk Line will hardly be saved by laying off 200 Danish citizens from the Danish flagged tankers and container carriers. A. P. Møller-Mærsk might save a few crowns by the arrangement, but the bad will generated by taking this stand is huge in the maritime cluster of Denmark. The Maritime Leaders’ Union was the first opponent to come onto the scene, saying that by laying off the Danish catering officers, the company is actually conducting a deep cut in the welfare of each mariner. The union means that having to live on food from a Filipino catering officer is a cut in the standard of living for a Danish officer. But, on the other hand, that is quite some exaggeration and yes, a lot of Filipino catering officers cook fine Scandinavian food, and yes, it is correct that deck ratings are hard to find in the education system in Denmark, but the signal sent by A. P. Møller-Mærsk is most inconvenient for the huge work done over the past year under the World Career campaign.

In the course of this campaign, youngsters in school and at education fairs have been told again and again that the maritime sector provides well-paid jobs now and in the foreseeable future. A. P. Møller-Mærsk’s recent action could mean back to square one for the whole campaign. Despite the bad signal from A. P. Møller-Mærsk the company is still the biggest provider of maritime jobs in Denmark.

The campaign is a long haul, which cannot be measured immediately, but hopefully it will pay off in the years to come with millions spent on campaigning and advertising on TV, radio and in magazines, as it was said by Dan Knudsen, head of the campaign. In fact, a qualified guess is that at the end of this year nearly DKK 40 million will have been spent on branding the maritime cluster in Denmark amongst Danish school children and youngsters in general.

This is a lot of money to catch 200 apprentices to be ship’s officers and work in the land-based shipping offices. It has been suggested that instead of advertising for the youngsters needed, it would be cheaper to go out and tap 200 people on the shoulder and pay them to take up a maritime education. But this is not how it works. It could be done that way, but it does not provide the people paid for going through the education with the joy and happiness of being on a ship at sea day after day up to seven weeks at a time. This is the hard part, along with the possibilities of having a family life ashore along with a maritime career.

This month’s SSG theme contains the story of a now 30-year old man who started at sea, took his diploma as an able seaman (AB), but never used it. And why? Because he wanted to be ashore when his first child was born and growing up. The 30-year old is still dreaming about his former working life at sea, but realizes that he has lost his opportunities in that line of work. The rest of us in the maritime sector have to take the message to everyone we meet: Sailing on a ship is a great life. It is well paid and has a lot of free time, which is a priority amongst people these days. In fact it is the only line of work, where it is normal to have six months of vacation per year.

Think about that whenever a young person asks you about your job. The matter of family life in three month portions is, however, one of the drawbacks of the job, but modern communication like e-mail service almost on line is rather common on many ships and some companies even provide a free telephone service as part of the welfare package, in order to keep their well trained and skilled crews.

Bent Mikkelsen

Latest update 21-02-2008 11:30

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