LeaderSHIP 2020 - Working Group Employment and Skills
Background
…
Mandate
The objective of the working group should be twofold: to reflect on ways to address the current
crisis situation and safeguard jobs under threat in shipbuilding whilst examining possibilities - on
the longer term - for diversification of activities in combination with re-training and training for
new skills.
The chairman of the working group is Ulrich Eckelmann and the rapporteur is Juha Valtanen.
Working Group Structure
The working group of “Employment and Skills” agreed to form four subgroups in order to make
the process of collecting information, etc. easier. These three subgroups were: 1) Scope, 2) Image
and Career path, 3) Harmonisation of Certificates and Mobility, 4) New Skills and Lifelong learning.
Each group have met also online in order to break the topics down discuss and prioritise their findings which will be finalized into the collective report in October 2012.
Sub Group Participants
Group A: Reinhard Leuken, Tomás Casquero Comadevila, Florian Carré and Anne-Bénédicte
Genachte
Group B: Lidia Luca, Ciro Scognamiglio
Group C: Mischa Terzyk, Lidia Luca, Murad Wisniewski
Group D: Benoit Desjeux, Lidia Luca, Simona Cost, Juha Valtanen
(this is not final, some groups have had more participants)
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1. Draft Report Sub-group C1 “Scope”
During the working group meetings some items were raised in the discussion which led to the
question which aspects of “Employment and Skills” the working group should deal with. It was
decided to clarify the scope of the working group, which is the aim of this section.
As a starting point, the general scope of LeaderSHIP 2020 should be revisited. LeaderSHIP 2020
aims at creating a strategy for the maritime engineering & manufacturing sector. This encompasses products and services for various end-user markets including merchant and naval ships,
various offshore activities (oil&gas, renewable energy, sea-mining etc.), leisure (cruise and superyachts), maintenance, repair & conversion as well as the full supply chain (material, equipment,
systems, services) and all support activities (research Institutes, education, financing etc.). The
interests of shipping and other user sectors play a distinct role: although not at the core of the
strategy building, only a strong customer input and support will ultimately lead to success of LeaderSHIP 2020.
The success of any economic activity depends on the people involved. Likewise, all aspects of
competitiveness impact employment in the sector. In that respect also the other two working
groups of LeaderSHIP 2020 respond to the question how the sector can contribute to sustainable
jobs and prosperity for Europe.
Aiming to define the contributions expected from the working group on Employment and Skills, a
general concept was mentioned during the first working group meeting:
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As depicted above it is proposed to focus on processes which influence the evolution of the skill
pool in the sector with the objective to ensure the availability of the optimal skill pool for the future and the making the best use of skills available.
The main processes of skill evolution include:

Entry of skills
o Training
o Recruitment

Modifications within the skill pool
o Lifelong learning

Exit of skills
o Retirement
o Change of sector by the employee
o Loss of job (e.g. in case of bankruptcy)
It could appear useful to develop an analytical approach to evaluate the size and structure of the
skill pools today and in future, to estimate the impact of the different evolution processes and to
identify necessary corrections measures.
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Actions which have no direct influence of these processes should be considered outside the scope
of the working group (e.g. health and safety consideration of user sectors such as offshore wind
farm operators or corporate social responsibility related to end of useful life of ships).
2. Draft Report Sub-group C2 “Image and Career path”
The European network of shipyards, equipment suppliers, research centers and other providers of
advanced technologies and engineering services counts about 9.000 companies and a workforce
of more than 500.000 people. The European industry holds strong market positions in building
complex and high-tech vessels and in ship repair while companies in the value chain are world
leaders in a wide range of technologically advanced products. Today’s structure of the European
industry, with a great diversity of yards and products is the result of severe restructuring processes
to face the fierce competition and growth of the sector in the Far East countries. The key factor to
success is the people who carry out the business.
Getting top talent into the sector has been challenging in the past due to cyclical nature of the
shipping and shipbuilding market, with many boom and bust periods bringing fluctuations on employment and skills needs. The coincidence of a business cycle with the global economic crisis
brings even more difficulties and impacts the results on the industry’s image. While this is not surprising, we must learn from previous recessions and make sure that we renew our efforts to get
talented people into the industry for the times when they will be needed more than ever to ensure we can avoid future skills shortages. Growing imbalances in the European demographics will
also present future challenges to human resource planning and the sectors that will anticipate and
be able to respond to the new circumstances will manage to attract the best people.
The following headings describe the context of the image project as discussed in the ‘Image and
Career path’ subgroup:
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What has been done so far and what is going on right now?
The LeaderSHIP2015 initiative has already brought important results and the sector is increasingly
recognized as a high technology innovative industry requiring advanced skills. LeaderSHIP2015
message has reached some of the focal groups via the European Shipyard Weeks that took place in
2006-2011 periods. During the four “Shipyard Week” campaigns at EU, regional and company levels, presented through open days, conferences and other activities to the public - schools, young
people, people working within the sector or in a relevant one, media, politicians and financial bodies - an authentic picture of the industry and its contribution to the implementation of Europe’s
employment and growth objectives. The stakeholders have reached the consensus that the efforts
in spreading the message must be continued and stepped up within the LeaderSHIP2020, advocating for concrete actions and political support, from EU to local level, to enhance the image of the
sector over the long term.
1. Challenges with promoting the Image of the sector
 Promoting the technical sector as a whole attracting bright young people to start their
working life within the sector as demand for highly-qualified technical people is increasing
from all industrial sectors
 Industry structure - made up of businesses that operate in a B2B environment which makes
it a challenge to build big popular brand names that are attractive when choosing a career
 Find the proper ways to communicate to the young people “in their language” that the sector is not limited to the production jobs and technical staff but provides opportunities to
build careers also in financial, management and service sectors
 Find solutions to demographic trends as an increasing number of older employees are exiting working life together with their competences and skills and ways to transfer their competences to young people
 Enhance the visibility of the high tech sector in Europe in the aftermath of the recession
and wipe out the general impression that the sector emigrated to Asia
 Changing the perception of “traditional industry” stereotypes and improving the
knowledge in inland areas about the industry that is frequently dynamic in coastal areas.
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2. What are the objectives that respond to the mandates of the working group?

To raise awareness about an innovative sector, with visions and future that offers responses to many of the modern challenges and in the same time, new business and entrepreneurial opportunities

To improve the visibility and general public perception of the sector and increase youngsters’ understanding and the understanding of people who might enter from other sectors
of how their professional interests potentially match the career opportunities the sector
has to offer.
3. Focal groups/ Target
A good image of technical education, career possibilities and the endless career possibilities within
our industry should be passed on in a professional way and need to be supported by all parties
involved. The way the young people during their basic education are being confronted with the
image of technical careers and possibilities they provide are essential for the decision process.
Parents, teachers, school advisors, and last but not lest friends are having the biggest influence on
this process - attempts to improve the image of shipbuilding must be directed at a broad range of
people either working in the maritime cluster itself or outside, politicians, students, press, financial- experts, educational people, universities, influential etc.
It’s necessary that a comprehensive analysis of the future skills needs in the sector is carried out in
the near future and the results disseminated and communicated to the target groups as well as
the educational institutions. This will enhance the attractiveness of the a career in maritime manufacturing as such study will most likely conclude that the career profiles are constantly evolving
and becoming more and more interesting as the sector responds to the new global challenges.
Another recommendation of the Image and Career Path group is focusing also on attracting women to uptake a career in the maritime sector.
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Target matrix
4. 3R Conditions imperative to achieve the objectives:
-
RECOGNITION: During the past years other sectors, mostly those providing office-based jobs
have gained in image towards the general public. Contrary to many other sectors, our sector’s
workforce is often invisible, and also the result of their work (working for a attractive consumer brand, i.e. automobile or telephone, is often perceived more prestigious). Improved attractiveness of technical schools and fascination for the the maritime sector during the technical
studies will be achieved with an improved recognition of technical careers and the variety of
work at all levels (from shop floor to management) they offer. A number of the current employees have the passion and interest to progress in the industry - work needs to be done to
give some recognition to these people and to better convey their opinions about the sector in
order to be heard by potential new entrants. In order to gain recognition for the valuable
work of more promotion featuring these workers’ testimonials and rewards is needed.
An active dialogue between the Social Partners and attractive working conditions like flexibility to work/travel around the world, higher salaries compared to other metal-working industries, longevity in a dynamic maritime sector etc should be promoted more in order to promote the engagement of all the stakeholders to increase the attractiveness of career paths in
the maritime manufacturing.
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RECRUITMENT: Managing the generational change: the ‘Generation Y’. These youngsters
(born after 1995) will be a workforce challenge that employers will meet towards 2015-2020
once they end up their studies. It’s this age group that will provide a significant part of the
workforce and this generation has significantly different expectations of the workplace than
previous generations as the global landscape of work is changing dramatically, bringing new
demands for employers and employees, innovating the working places, patterns, conditions.
We need inventive ideas and concerted effort to improve the sector’s attractiveness through
modernized work places and flexible working conditions and to present it as an excellent career choice to this group.
Promotion to and recruitment from other sectors should also be addressed. There are workers in the sectors like electrical engineering or seafaring that look for a career change - they
should be attracted to our sector. This will bring in already experienced workforce.
-
RETENTION: Improved retention, job flexibility and mobility strategies need to be employed to
encourage staff to remain in the sector. The industry’s high turnover rate is due in part to the
cyclical nature of the shipping and shipbuilding markets; in part due to the versatility the acquired skills offer those in the sector to move along the value chain and maritime sector in
general (equipment makers - yards - classification societies - research institutions - design
agencies –shipowners - public bodies etc). These aspects should be used in a positive way to
increase the awareness of multitude of possibilities for building career paths to prospective
entrants including such aspects as flexibility when choosing where and whom to work for,
wide range of opportunities for evolution, potential of developing entrepreneurial activities
etc.
5. Actions
An improved and up-dated version of the Shipyards Week image campaign that considers the
points above will, in its modern approach, be appealing to the potential labour supply and build up
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on the Image campaigns run until now. While the title European Shipyard Week needs to be updated to enclose the value chain, there should be kept in mind that a Maritime Week is often focused towards seafarers while we target a rather distinct pool of people. Regardless the title, the
actions could be developed under the already established “SEA your future!” motto. They could
feature a series of motivations that are designed to attract also current job seekers, those looking
to change careers, older workers into the sector and to reflect an up-dated picture of the sector –
innovative and sustainable, with visions and future.
The campaign should mobilize a European network of public and private bodies – companies,
schools, research /design institutions, job agencies, regional offices to develop regular activities
with great potential such as:
-
Thematic conferences and promotion of youth activities in the context of European events
-
Industry/Activity Days / Site visits / Open days /
-
More integration of academic and industry events
-
Scholarships / Sponsorships / Classroom Presentations
-
Student shadow programs (not “hands-on” experience, generally an observation-andinformation type of experience only).
-
Joint sea-related events with national / regional/ local communities
-
Creative competitions on sea-related themes for all group ages
-
More use of social media, creation of sea-themes IT- apps to sync with Generation Y
-
Appoint and support young ambassadors, who speak the “language” of the youngsters, to
promote the dynamic nature of the industry.
-
Use of innovative products, visitors access to large scale/ yards’ facilities
-
Inland penetrating activities
-
Carry out “perception surveys” on industry knowledge at school and university level
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6. Tools
Existing tools provided by actions and initiatives such as European Maritime Day, Youth on the
Move, EU Youth Strategy etc still need to be identified and explored.
Two recommendations surfaced to this point:
 To use European Maritime Day as a pre-event of the Image Campaign – The European
Maritime Day is celebrated annually across Europe on 20 May. It aims at showing the importance of the sea for everyday life, and for economy and job creation, both in coastal
communities and in landlocked areas across Europe. The main event is the European Maritime Day Conference organized by DG Mare and held in a different region each year. In
2013 it will be Valetta, Malta and in 2014 - Bremen, Germany.
Aside the main conference there is the possibility to organize stakeholder events across Europe. The parties wishing to organize a European Maritime Day event in their town or region have to submit an event proposal to the EC – the group should discuss with DG Mare
the possibilities to conduct events in the context of the Industry’s Image Campaign. Traditionally, the European Shipyards Week was organized in the first week of October when
most on European schools start the year, the idea of having a pre-event in May on Maritime day could be envisaged.
 Creation of a network of European Maritime Youth Club – The EC offers numerous opportunities for young people through the Youth on the Move policies. As most of the programs
are for young people up to age of 30 years old, the stakeholders could support the creation
of a Maritime Youth Club and ensure its long-term running while the actions within the organization to be managed mostly by and for the young people. This could not only help
identify and promote the leaders of tomorrow but also run various youth-related activities
within the sector, including organizing summer schools, exchanges, active involvement in
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the Image campaign etc. Young networking exist already in several countries. The stakeholders should create a committee to explore the possibilities of creating an European Club
and explore the possibility of bringing together the already existing ones and support creating new ones where possible.
Draft Report Sub-group C3 “Harmonisation of Certificates and Mobility”
Background
During the exchange of views on the WG Employment and Skills mandate the harmonization of
curricula, the recognition of professional qualifications and the promotion of specialized career
paths have been identified as points which would merit further analysis, in particular:
•
attention should be paid to the recognition not only of the degrees of graduates
coming from other Member States but also of skills of those workers (in particular from third
countries) who possess crucial know-how even if they do not have formal degrees ascertaining
these qualifications;
•
since a broad set of policy tools to harmonize career paths already exists, it seems
appropriate to analyse and eventually use these instruments before designing new ones; The
Commission services were called to help identifying these existing instruments.
•
the scope of the LeaderSHIP initiative should focus only on what is relevant at the
European level, leaving national specificities to national governments or associations.
•
Master's programmes, MBAs and specialized educational programmes should be
broad enough in order to encompass emerging sub-sectors; it is important that these new possibilities are not overlooked which might be the case if the educational programmes focus solely on
the shipbuilding sector. In general, the need for taking into account the market needs when designing educational programmes was stressed.
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Mandates and objectives for the sub-group:
"Harmonisation of certificates/mobility": This subgroup will analyse possible measures that could
be taken to to improve the employability of the workers via the harmonization of the qualifications, recognition of informal learning and increase the mobility of skilled workers, especially
within the maritime sector.
Background discussion during the meeting:
-
The sector is losing jobs and competences due to decreasing orderbooks
-
Demographic trends – more need for easy to assess, “mobile” employees
-
Evolution of products – evolution of skills and competences
-
The sector needs to know what competences exist at European level
-
Different training programs and certificates exist in different member states
-
In several countries there is number of people who have no certificates or qualifications for
their informally acquired competences during the working life
Actions and Tools
1.
As a starting point for the harmonization and mobility the recommendation for the strategy on
Employment and Skills is the listing of the various qualifications that exist in the EU countries and
assessment of their comparability with those in other member countries. As already concluded
during the meeting on May 24th, a broad set of policy tools to harmonize career paths already
exists. The group deems it most appropriate to use the EQF instrument instead of designing a new
one as it provides the right framework for action. The European Qualifications aims to increase the
transparency and comparability of qualifications throughout Europe in order to promote mobility
for learning and work and make lifelong learning a reality for all citizens. The implementation process will ensure that qualifications issued by competent authorities are related, via the NQF, to the
EQF, a process that results in the establishment of a relationship between the levels of the European meta-framework (EQF) and the national qualifications framework/system (NQF).
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To analyse wether this tool meets the needs of the sector, the group met with Anita Kremo
anita.kremo@ec.europa.eu from the Directorate General Education and Culture in charge of EQF
and Jens Bjørnåvold Jens.Bjornavold@cedefop.europa.eu from CEDEFOP.
The EQF will relate different countries’ national qualifications systems and frameworks together
around a common European reference – its eightreference levels, from basic to advanced levels.
As an instrument for the promotion of lifelong learning, the EQF encompasses all levels of qualifications acquired in general, vocational as well as academic education and training. Additionally,
the framework addresses qualifications acquired in initial and continuing education and training. It
seems that the National Authorities have been cooperating rather smoothly on this project and in
the near term, less than 2 years, the tools is expected to be online and available for users.
The Employment and Skills WG presumes that the EQF will be in place in medium-term and will
provide the necessary harmonization of most of the diplomas and certificates. A bottleneck could
be that potential users (employers and employees) are not yet sufficiently aware of this European
tool. More connections and feedback from practitioners is desired to assess the practicalities of
the instruments.
DG EAC presented another project where sectoral approach would respond to the second recommendation of the group – the ESCO system (European Skills, Competencies and Occupations taxonomy). This system aims to describe the most relevant skills, competences and qualifications
needed for several thousand occupations and is developed with stakeholders from various public
and private organizations. To this end there is no subgroup created for the maritime sectors. However, the ESCO secretariat is currently conducting surveys in an effort to map the state of a series
of industrial sectors and the situation concerning employment. The ESCO secretariat also plans to
study the shipbuilding sector, forming parts of the transport/equipment sector and expressed interest in awaiting the results of the LeaderSHIP review process and consider them in a their survey. To do so, the mapping of the transport/equipment sector could be postponed to May 2013 in
order to consider the updated recommendation from LeaderSHIP 2020.
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2.
As mentioned above, the second recommendation the group deals with is the recognition of informal learning and that is where the efforts should be greater - to find a solution to the issue of
informally acquired competences and possibilities of recognition of such competences through
certificates in order to increase their employability and mobility. It seems that this issue is more
critical in some countries than others, but no studies for our sector exist in order to evaluate the
magnitude of this problem.
It was suggested that the SSDC could consider conducting such a study with financing support
from DG Employment under the Calls for proposals - Industrial Relations, Support for Social Dialogue Heading. Potentially, information and results obtained from the first phase of the shipbuilding Sector Skills Council could be drawn upon.
Following the discussion on ESCO, the groups has to analyze if there would be some value
added from cooperation with ESCO on developing job profiles, measurements of the acquired
competences and possibilities to recognize them. It was also suggested the possibility of developing a sectoral voluntary accreditation system that could be addressed in the Social Dialogue.
Draft Report Sub-group C4 “New Skills and Lifelong Learning”
Mandates and objectives of Employment and Skills WG
The sub-group on New Skills and Lifelong Learning considers its task also two-fold:
-
measures for safeguarding jobs under threat in shipbuilding by adopting LLL processes that
would help those employees up-date/up-grade their competences in order to remain employable while the sector moves into high technology niche markets
-
measures in order to respond to diversification of activities by offering the right sets of skills
on long-term by such means as up-skilling and acquisition of new skills
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Background on the current situation
Some treands and future challenges are common at European level, but many regions are
confronted with different situations and different challenges, driving the sector towards new
markets and new business models. Overall, the implications on the overall EU employment
developments derive from the below 4 scenarios:
Scenarios with implications on EU
employment in shipbuilding and maritime
equipment
Economic Situation
Recovery &
and demand for
growing demand
maritime
applications
Stagnant
Skills, Technological Competences
Preservation&Advance
Asian / Other nations
of EU competences
level-out EU
Most Favourable
Less favourable
Favourable
Least favourable
economies & low
demand
Based on IKEI1 scenarios
With the LeaderSHIP2020 its clear that preservation and advance of EU competences should be
the aim of all steakholders. From the discussion of the group it seems that currently most of the
companies are focusing on surviving the crisis and securing work rather than at long term skills
needs. Therefore, concerted effort at European level is needed to create a long term strategy to
ensure preservation of EU competences and that right people with right skills are available at the
right time and in the right place.
The threats to the loss of critical mass of skills and technological competences derive from:
-
Loss of jobs as a result of the economic crisis and imbalances on the supply –demand market
1
IKEI Study for DG Employment from 2009 Comprehensive sectoral analysis of emerging competences and
economic activities in the European Union:Building and Repairing of Ships and Boats sector available at
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=782&newsId=731&furtherNews=yes
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-
Ageing of the workforce (according to the 2008 EU-funded HR Research study on
Demographic change & Skills Requirements in the sector 13% of EU shipbuilding workers were
over 55 years old compared to 12% in total EU employment; in shipbuilding the North-West
European countries have a relatively older worksforce than South-East European countries
and roughly 20% of the employees (total employment in 2008) were expected to retire in the
next 10-15 years in N-W countries).
-
Poor transfer of competences between old and new generations
-
The issue of Image and new recruitment was addressed – this topic is dealt with in the subworking group on Image and Career Path.
In the context of the Leadership2020 strategy the two other working groups are looking at the
growth and new markets, establishing priorities, milestones and strategies that will help the
industry to achieve qualitative and quantitative growth. Technical innovation and changing
business models suggest that workforce required for next generation of maritime hardware could
need a different set of competences. From the Employment and Skills point of view its necessary
to conduct a analysis of these trends and strategies identify the competences required in the
future, both in terms of quality and quantity and find consensus among the industry on a pilot
educational program or set-up an integrated educational concept as public-private partnership
between LeaderSHIP2020 stakeholders that will respond to industry requirements on long term.
Actions and Tools
It was agreed that in parallel to the other LeaderSHIP2020 WG on the regional situations via the
regions networks are needed. This should help the working group to evaluate based on multiple
sources where is the industry standing today and which are the trends that needs to be adressed
on long term in order to achieve better employment possibilities towards 2020. Following the
feedback from the regions its necessary to analyse the trends and drivers of change and their
implications. In addition, a leading point could be the Drivers of changes in our sector identified
in the IKEI Study in the context of New Skills for New Jobs innitiative:
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After such an excercise based on results of the study, the regions feedback and discussion with
other working groups results should be analysed together in order to asses where are we standing
today, where will the sector be on long term and which issues we need to address on order to
match the workforce competences with the demand (seveal issues were addressed already in IKEI
study as table below shows).
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Source: IKEI
Four key elements must be adressed in order to enable European shipbuilding and maritime
manufacturing companies to remain competitive globally:
-
Entrepreneurship, leadership and supply chain management
-
Innovation and technical workforce development
-
Knowledge management, productivity and competitiveness
-
Quality human capital and timely workforce planning
However, a more in depth analytical study is necessary to create a comprehensive list of
competences/skill needs to be addressed through LLL processes. This should be further
implemented via a program that offers access to LLL practices in order to improve the skills and
competences and thus employability of the people. The program should be harmonized and
transnational, provide the frameworks for sectoral actions at European level but be flexible
enough to be easily adjustable to specific regional/local needs during the implementation phase. It
could develop activities like:
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-
Training programs aiming to improve cooperation between the education and industry and
foster better anticipation of skill needs
-
Training programs based on knowledge transfer from old to young generations or a European
Knowledge Management and Transfer project to ensure that intellectual capital is not lost
-
Fellowships / scholarships, summer schools, industry-specific seminars
-
Exchange programs similar to Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.
It was discussed that the European Social Fund (ESF) could be a good tool to use for creation of
such a program since the ESF aims at:
I.
Promoting employment and skills
 Access to employment for job-seekers and inactive people, including local employment initiatives and support for labour mobility;
 Sustainable integration of young people not in employment, education or training into the
labour market;
 Self-employment, entrepreneurship and business creation;
 Adaptation of workers, enterprises and entrepreneurs to change;
 Modernization and strengthening of labour market institutions, including actions to enhance transnational labour mobility
 Investing in education, skills and lifelong learning by developing education and training infrastructure
II.
Investing in education, skills and life-long learning through:
 Reducing early school-leaving and promoting equal access to good quality early-childhood,
primary and secondary education;
 Improving the quality, efficiency and openness of tertiary and equivalent education with a
view to increasing participation and attainment levels;
 Enhancing access to lifelong learning, upgrading the skills and competences of the workforce and increasing the labour market relevance of education and training systems;
Further discussions and investigations could looks into similar EC initiatives such as Erasmus for
All, Leonardo da Vinci. The group needs to liaise with EC officers that manage these initiatives to
investigate the possibilities for action.
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It was also discussed wether the Skills Councils on Shipbuilding should not focus on the this issues
– since the project is only at the first phase further investigation and discussion are needed. The
group is invited to participate at the first dedicated workshop on 19 July. The first pase of the
porject will be finalised at the end of October 2012. Applications for Setting up Sectoral Skills
Councils could be made once new Calls for proposals will be opened (EC announced new
possibilities to apply also during 2013).
Threads to adress the skills and competences could be found also in the Smart Specialization
Strategies and regions innitiatives. Its recommended that all these should be streamlined to allow
a better flow of information toward the companies and employees, the ultimate beneficiaries of
the policies and strategies.
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