Job Search
August 2010
Global shipping news from Spinnaker
» Welcome
» Maritime HR Summer Success
» Offshore activity
» Season of contrasts
» Cadet shortage
» Togetherness
» Path progression
» Understanding Engineers - Take Six
Summer is upon us, with all that that entails in terms of trying to track down people you need to contact, all of whom appear to have left their various countries in search of a suitable level of UV grilling. At this time of year, the press generally breaks out its good old stories, although we have yet to see the traditional August Titanic tale.
One such posed the question why, if the iceberg was so big, the Titanic didn’t moor alongside?
With certain titanic convulsions in the Baltic Dry index in recent months, while the mood is upbeat, there is still a lot of uncertainty out there.
Much of the talk is about what the prospects are for commodities trades with China and India, which have had such a role to play in underpinning the dry cargo market. Will the Chinese market overheat? Have we heard this before? Yes we have.
Our chairman’s attendance at a recent wedding at which only one tanker man was present, alongside a load of dry bulk people, seemed to indicate that contrary to the usual trend, tanker men were, for once, in a slightly happier mood, with the dry cargo contingent falling on their swords. A few wet cold ones soon sorted them out!
Perhaps our man had read the Platou report suggesting that the drop in VLCC rates might simply be due to the release of Iranian cruise from storage.
Then again the market may be weak because, well, everyone is on holiday. There certainly seems to be plenty of scrapping activity, particularly for tankers where the single hull phase out continues. The question remains what will happen with all the new tonnage coming into the market?
Back to the top
We are delighted to note that six new members have joined the Maritime HR Forum in as many weeks taking membership to nearly 40 companies. The Forum is the only source of worldwide, reliable compensation and benefits data for the shore-based shipping industry.
Several thousand peoples’ salaries are surveyed by the forum each year, and its next report is due out in the third quarter of the year. The forum is used by shipowners, managers, trading and oil companies to benchmark salaries and benefits for 40 shore jobs.
If you are interested in joining the forum, email Phil Parry or Charlotte Sleap at Spinnaker, which acts as secretariat to the Forum – pparry@shippingjobs.com / csleap@shippingjobs.com.
Back to the top
Spinnaker is seeing more vacancies in the offshore support and FPSO markets than we have ever had. This is both technical, in terms of newbuildings, FPSO project management and technical management of offshore fleets, as well as offshore commercial specialists. At the moment we are looking for a newbuildings director, a head of offshore fleet, and a head of FPSO business development and project management - http://www.shippingjobs.com/job-details.asp?jobst=1&jobref=HQ00003092 (contact Caroline Horsley or Cara Gurren – chorsley@shippingjobs.com or cgurren@shippingjobs.com). We are also looking for offshore brokers and several offshore superintendents.
Our current vacancies are in Europe and the Far East but the Brazilian offshore market has been really heating up the last two years and is undergoing a new market dynamic rather like the VLCC and LNG markets when they were the new kids on the block. The sudden rush of demand for staff in a particular sector and a particular location always causes an immediate spike in salaries and that is exactly what’s happened in Brazil. The Brazilian offshore market is the gold rush hot spot of the moment.
Back to the top
When freight rates collapsed in September 2008 it looked like being a long hard winter and while 2009 was a tough year for maritime recruitment, particularly in the commercial market, 2010 couldn’t be more different. Spinnaker is seeing a very active market and great successes in all three of its divisions – commercial, professional services and technical.
The professional services division is very busy with legal, claims and sales roles, although unsurprisingly ship finance and banking have yet to pick up to a great extent. However we are seeing more activity and vacancies in the P&I underwriting market.
The commercial division is as busy as it has ever been, although the emphasis at the moment is on recruitment around physical trading rather than the derivatives and FFA market. The general increase in trading CIF as opposed to FOB has meant the number of employers with a need for chartering/freight trading and operations staff has increased. Competitive ship broking firms are also actively recruiting, in direct contrast to a year ago.
The technical division, which never crashed like the commercial market, is pretty much back to 2008 levels. One difference we are seeing at Spinnaker is that whereas in 2008 a lot of recruitment was happening after the first interview, in 2010 a lot of companies are being more careful about their recruiting and we are seeing a lot more second and third interviews.
Or, again(!), perhaps it’s just the summer holidays and people are having to go back to meet the people they couldn’t meet the first time around...
Back to the top
Whether or not there is a serious shortage of cadets, and whether there are the necessary jobs for them has always been an emotive topic. According to at least one recent press report, the UK Chamber of Shipping was accused by officers union Nautilus International of breaking promises on training seafarers, an accusation the Chamber denied.
We are delighted to be able to report that one of three young seafarers who spoke at the ISF manning and training conference last year has been offered a job at BP, after contacting a number of shipping companies, and we can congratulate BP on its choice of candidate.
Colin MacQuarrie sat on a Q&A panel at the conference with our chairman, who was immensely impressed to discover in him fantastic ambassador for the industry. We gather the vast majority of his classmates have now had job offers or are going through the interview process, many of them having initially not been offered permanent roles by their training employers, although there is still one searching for a placement.
There are some impressive young people out there. Shipping companies should be beating a path to their doors. One of the other cadets at the ISF Conference, Fiona Rush, was snapped up by Shell more or less the next day.
If you’re a cadet coming to the end of your training or an employer looking for newly qualified officers, drop us a line and we’ll put you in touch with each other. newsletter@shippingjobs.com
Back to the top
The UK Chamber of Shipping and seafarers’ union Nautilus may have had their differences over tonnage tax, but they were singing from the same song sheet about reports that the Department for Transport has been asked to find cuts of between 25% and 40%. The Chamber has asked the government not to seek savings from the Support for Maritime Training Scheme, and warned that the withdrawal of the scheme could make it uneconomic for operators to train UK officers.
The Chamber has also expressed concern, with other major UK operators, that UK equality legislation mean that they would be obliged to pay crews at UK rates of pay, even if they do not pay their living costs in the UK or even set foot in the country. The fear is that operators may decide to flag their ships away from the UK.
How have government cuts affected training initiatives in your country? Let us know. newsletter@shippingjobs.com
Back to the top
“Smoothing the Way” is the title of a conference which is being put on by the Maritime Skills Alliance on September 27 at Trinity House. It aims to explore ways in which seafarers can progress and transfer skills in the maritime sector. The all day event will include a keynote speech by Maritime and Coastguard Agency CEO Sir Alan Massey, as well as presentations across a broad spectrum of different industry sectors. Back to the top
Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body.
One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints."
Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections."
The last one said, "No, actually it had to have been a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"
Back to the top
» Maritime HR Summer Success
» Offshore activity
» Season of contrasts
» Cadet shortage
» Togetherness
» Path progression
» Understanding Engineers - Take Six
Welcome
Summer is upon us, with all that that entails in terms of trying to track down people you need to contact, all of whom appear to have left their various countries in search of a suitable level of UV grilling. At this time of year, the press generally breaks out its good old stories, although we have yet to see the traditional August Titanic tale.
One such posed the question why, if the iceberg was so big, the Titanic didn’t moor alongside?
With certain titanic convulsions in the Baltic Dry index in recent months, while the mood is upbeat, there is still a lot of uncertainty out there.
Much of the talk is about what the prospects are for commodities trades with China and India, which have had such a role to play in underpinning the dry cargo market. Will the Chinese market overheat? Have we heard this before? Yes we have.
Our chairman’s attendance at a recent wedding at which only one tanker man was present, alongside a load of dry bulk people, seemed to indicate that contrary to the usual trend, tanker men were, for once, in a slightly happier mood, with the dry cargo contingent falling on their swords. A few wet cold ones soon sorted them out!
Perhaps our man had read the Platou report suggesting that the drop in VLCC rates might simply be due to the release of Iranian cruise from storage.
Then again the market may be weak because, well, everyone is on holiday. There certainly seems to be plenty of scrapping activity, particularly for tankers where the single hull phase out continues. The question remains what will happen with all the new tonnage coming into the market?
Back to the top
Maritime HR Summer Success
We are delighted to note that six new members have joined the Maritime HR Forum in as many weeks taking membership to nearly 40 companies. The Forum is the only source of worldwide, reliable compensation and benefits data for the shore-based shipping industry.
Several thousand peoples’ salaries are surveyed by the forum each year, and its next report is due out in the third quarter of the year. The forum is used by shipowners, managers, trading and oil companies to benchmark salaries and benefits for 40 shore jobs.
If you are interested in joining the forum, email Phil Parry or Charlotte Sleap at Spinnaker, which acts as secretariat to the Forum – pparry@shippingjobs.com / csleap@shippingjobs.com.
Back to the top
Offshore activity
Spinnaker is seeing more vacancies in the offshore support and FPSO markets than we have ever had. This is both technical, in terms of newbuildings, FPSO project management and technical management of offshore fleets, as well as offshore commercial specialists. At the moment we are looking for a newbuildings director, a head of offshore fleet, and a head of FPSO business development and project management - http://www.shippingjobs.com/job-details.asp?jobst=1&jobref=HQ00003092 (contact Caroline Horsley or Cara Gurren – chorsley@shippingjobs.com or cgurren@shippingjobs.com). We are also looking for offshore brokers and several offshore superintendents.
Our current vacancies are in Europe and the Far East but the Brazilian offshore market has been really heating up the last two years and is undergoing a new market dynamic rather like the VLCC and LNG markets when they were the new kids on the block. The sudden rush of demand for staff in a particular sector and a particular location always causes an immediate spike in salaries and that is exactly what’s happened in Brazil. The Brazilian offshore market is the gold rush hot spot of the moment.
Back to the top
Season of contrasts
When freight rates collapsed in September 2008 it looked like being a long hard winter and while 2009 was a tough year for maritime recruitment, particularly in the commercial market, 2010 couldn’t be more different. Spinnaker is seeing a very active market and great successes in all three of its divisions – commercial, professional services and technical.
The professional services division is very busy with legal, claims and sales roles, although unsurprisingly ship finance and banking have yet to pick up to a great extent. However we are seeing more activity and vacancies in the P&I underwriting market.
The commercial division is as busy as it has ever been, although the emphasis at the moment is on recruitment around physical trading rather than the derivatives and FFA market. The general increase in trading CIF as opposed to FOB has meant the number of employers with a need for chartering/freight trading and operations staff has increased. Competitive ship broking firms are also actively recruiting, in direct contrast to a year ago.
The technical division, which never crashed like the commercial market, is pretty much back to 2008 levels. One difference we are seeing at Spinnaker is that whereas in 2008 a lot of recruitment was happening after the first interview, in 2010 a lot of companies are being more careful about their recruiting and we are seeing a lot more second and third interviews.
Or, again(!), perhaps it’s just the summer holidays and people are having to go back to meet the people they couldn’t meet the first time around...
Back to the top
Cadet shortage
Whether or not there is a serious shortage of cadets, and whether there are the necessary jobs for them has always been an emotive topic. According to at least one recent press report, the UK Chamber of Shipping was accused by officers union Nautilus International of breaking promises on training seafarers, an accusation the Chamber denied.
We are delighted to be able to report that one of three young seafarers who spoke at the ISF manning and training conference last year has been offered a job at BP, after contacting a number of shipping companies, and we can congratulate BP on its choice of candidate.
Colin MacQuarrie sat on a Q&A panel at the conference with our chairman, who was immensely impressed to discover in him fantastic ambassador for the industry. We gather the vast majority of his classmates have now had job offers or are going through the interview process, many of them having initially not been offered permanent roles by their training employers, although there is still one searching for a placement.
There are some impressive young people out there. Shipping companies should be beating a path to their doors. One of the other cadets at the ISF Conference, Fiona Rush, was snapped up by Shell more or less the next day.
If you’re a cadet coming to the end of your training or an employer looking for newly qualified officers, drop us a line and we’ll put you in touch with each other. newsletter@shippingjobs.com
Back to the top
Togetherness
The UK Chamber of Shipping and seafarers’ union Nautilus may have had their differences over tonnage tax, but they were singing from the same song sheet about reports that the Department for Transport has been asked to find cuts of between 25% and 40%. The Chamber has asked the government not to seek savings from the Support for Maritime Training Scheme, and warned that the withdrawal of the scheme could make it uneconomic for operators to train UK officers.
The Chamber has also expressed concern, with other major UK operators, that UK equality legislation mean that they would be obliged to pay crews at UK rates of pay, even if they do not pay their living costs in the UK or even set foot in the country. The fear is that operators may decide to flag their ships away from the UK.
How have government cuts affected training initiatives in your country? Let us know. newsletter@shippingjobs.com
Back to the top
Path progression
“Smoothing the Way” is the title of a conference which is being put on by the Maritime Skills Alliance on September 27 at Trinity House. It aims to explore ways in which seafarers can progress and transfer skills in the maritime sector. The all day event will include a keynote speech by Maritime and Coastguard Agency CEO Sir Alan Massey, as well as presentations across a broad spectrum of different industry sectors. Back to the top
Understanding Engineers - Take Six
Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body.
One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints."
Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections."
The last one said, "No, actually it had to have been a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"
Back to the top
|
