More than one in two maritime employees are actively seeking a new job

More than one in two maritime employees are actively seeking a new job, a new survey has found, with grave concerns voiced about job security in today’s challenging shipping conditions.

The 10th annual Maritime Employee Survey carried by Halcyon Recruitment and Coracle saw 2,800 respondents take part over a two-month period around the start of the year.

The survey shows job security is now the most important aspect for job seekers when considering a career move.

62% of those surveyed indicated they are concerned about job security compared to 56% in the previous year and when considering a career move, job security ranked as most important followed by reputation of employer.

Commenting on the findings Heidi Heseltine, CEO of Halcyon Recruitment, told Splash: “I’m not surprised to see job security causing increasing concern to employees in our industry. Markets continue to be volatile and companies who are in financially strong positions are often investing by way of mergers and acquisitions – tanker, gas, dry, offshore, technology, finance, broking – it’s happening across all sectors and with some very big names in the industry. This creates huge amounts of uncertainty for employees in a market already unsettled by slowing global growth, heightened political tensions and fragile economies; this is why we are also seeing so many people willing to consider a job move with 54% of participants telling us they are actively looking for a new job and a further 41% stating they are not looking but open to offers.”

Other key findings from the annual maritime survey show that 70% of participants feel their employer could do more to achieve a diverse and inclusive workforce with 24% of those polled believing they have been discriminated at work.

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