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Finland's shipyards desperately seeking workers
By Gael Branchereau
AFP
OSLO
Petroleumworld.com 04 11 07
With its reputation as a troublesome and moribund industry, Finland's shipbuilding sector is desperately seeking workers at a time when orders are flooding in.
The announcement this week that Norwegian shipbuilding giant Aker Yards, and its Finnish subsidiary have clocked up a second order for the world's biggest cruise vessel, the Genesis, from Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCC) only piled on the pressure.
In order to honour their order book Finland's Aker subsidiary and its subcontractors must hire 8,000 people by 2010.
Aker Finland alone says it needs to hire 300 new people a year, including architects, designers, engineers, welders, and platers.
That is easier said than done, given that the kind of jobs on offer and the kind of people looking for jobs do not match, at a time the country's jobless rate is falling.
"We are not facing a shortage of labour force as such, but we have a problem in finding qualified workers for the shipyards industry," Sinikka Railo, the Communications Manager at Aker Finland told AFP.
She said that the new hires would fill places left by people who have retired: the average age for people in shipbuilding currently being relatively high at 46 for blue collar and 50 for white collar workers.
Aker Yards has already set about filling the gap by launching a drive to attract young workers.
"Our teams are criss-crossing Finland to talk about careers and opportunities. We have launched a campaign in the radio, in the press and for the first time on television," Railo said.
"We are telling young people: the shipyards it's much more than welding," she added.
Tapio Karvonen, a researcher at the Centre for Maritime Studies, said the situation is "very serious," but under control.
"Timetables are very tight already and there is no room for any delays affected by shortages of labour," he said.
"But ... I don't think it will have significant effect on production ... The economic trend in the cruise industry is now so strong that Finnish shipyards can't afford to lose their position."
If the shipyards are suffering from a lack of workers it is due to their reputation as a troublesome and moribund industry, a lack of training and young people's preference for other sectors of activity.
"The image of the shipbuilding industry is still too poor among young people who are considering what to do for living," Karvonen said.
"Old prejudices about a heavy and dirty job are strong even if the truth is very different nowadays."
"Young people prefer the IT sector and they don't understand that shipbuilding actually is quite an IT business today. The other reason is that shipbuilding had serious problems in the beginning of 1990's and its future in Finland seemed uncertain."He said the short-term solution to the problem was to bring in foreign labour, while the long-term solution lay in training.
At Aker's subcontractors in Helsinki, Turku or Rauma two employees out of three are already Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish or Russian.
Other European shipyards also report difficulties hiring.
At Saint Nazaire in western France the management of Aker Yards says that it has had no shortage of workers, but needs to fill 400 jobs by 2009 to respond to growth in demand.
Aker Yards said its 'Cruise and Ferries' unit now has 22 vessels on its order book, eleven of which are cruise vessels.
In January 2006, Aker Yards bought French shipyards Chantiers de L'Atlantique, making it the fourth-biggest shipbuilder in the world and the second-biggest cruise ship maker after Italy's Fincantieri group.
Aker Yards employs 55,000 people and has shipyards in 17 countries.
It reported net profit of 1.037 billion kroner (127 million euros, 170 million dollars) last year, an increase of 33.5 percent from the result in 2005.
Faced with fierce competition from Asian shipbuilders in South Korea, Japan and China, Aker Yards has helped consolidate the European industry and has focused on manufacturing complex vessels requiring advanced engineering and design.
It is a leader in the production of cruise ships, merchant vessels such as cargo ships, and other ships requiring customisation or specialised technology such as anchor handlers or large oil platform supply boats.
AFP 10 0259 GMT 04 07Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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