New digital platform facilitates job placement in the maritime industry

A NEWLY launched digital platform is enhancing employment prospects for graduates from four maritime training institutions in the Caribbean. This initiative by the American Caribbean Maritime Foundation (ACMF) takes place as the maritime industry seeks to recover from the far-reaching effects of the COVID 19 pandemic and manoeuvre around further disruptions in the global supply chain occasioned by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

There are fears in the industry that the current global challenges could exacerbate a chronic labour shortage of maritime workers, especially at the officer level. In developing the Caribbean Maritime Career Exchange (CAREX) platform, however, the ACMF sees industry leaders’ warning of increased difficulty in hiring workers as presenting opportunities to be seized by maritime graduands in the region.

VIRTUAL MEETING PLACE

The new ‘jobs board’, www.ACMF-CAREX.org, provides a vibrant virtual meeting place for prospective employees and employers, allowing signed-in companies to create a profile, post new job offers, search for and contact candidates. Prospective employees visiting the website can upload resumes, browse, and apply for jobs in a wide spectrum of categories, including technology, logistics, engineering, navigation, hospitality and administration.

The facility is open to graduates of the American Caribbean Maritime Foundation’s academic partners, namely, the Caribbean Maritime University in Jamaica, the Lowell Jason Mortimer Maritime Academy in The Bahamas, the University of Trinidad and Tobago, and the MATPAL Marine Institute in Guyana.

“This is indicative of our clear focus on having the young people of our region positioned to take advantage of the projected shortage of some 90,000 mariners and officers by 2026,” says Dr Geneive Brown Metzger, president and founder of the ACMF.

Established donors to the ACMF are expected to be among the most active on the ACMF-CAREX platform. These include Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Line, Arawak Port Development, Nassau Cruise Port, Seacor, Tropical Shipping, and TOTE Maritime, among others.

Established in 2016, the American Caribbean Maritime Foundation provides scholarships and grants as well as underwrites sea time for its scholars to prepare them to work in the maritime industry. Its activities extend to infrastructural development at institutions with which it partners and include funding classrooms, providing essential equipment, and opportunities for mentoring.

Shipping, including, by extension, the logistics and supply chain industry, is critical to the region. The Caribbean Sea, with its intensive maritime traffic, is one of the principal waterways for global trade. The Caribbean also plays a significant role in cruise ship tourism, the region accounting for over one-third of global cruise line deployment prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

The ACMF’s mission is informed by the potential of the maritime industry to substantially contribute to providing jobs as a basis for economic growth and poverty reduction in the region.

The ACMF points to the sheer magnitude and significance of the maritime industry, having been brought even more strikingly to the fore over the months of the COVID 19 pandemic. Talk of disruption and bottlenecks in the global supply chain became commonplace with pandemic-related lockdowns, border closures, logistical challenges and shortages of equipment and containers. Consumers and retailers have been painfully aware of issues of availability and escalating prices.

There was also heightened focus on the level of dependency on cruise shipping for the region with the crippling of the industry, prior to the US-based ships resuming service in the summer of 2021 with strict protocols and altered itineraries.

Toward the end of 2021, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) made the welcome prediction of annual growth of 2.4 per cent in maritime trade between 2022 and 2026, albeit slowing, compared to 2.9 per cent over the past two decades. Global shocks, however, UNCTAD states, threaten the gains made towards recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the path to sustainable development.

REGIONAL EXPANSION

Nonetheless, the ACMF emphasises the timeliness of its ACMF-CAREX launch as the maritime industry looks to post-COVID recovery, and beyond the complex consequences on its operations caused by the war in Europe.“Given the industry’s strong roots in, and well-catalogued potential for, regional expansion we are focused on positioning for a resurgent maritime industry and more aggressively facilitating the placement of maritime graduates,” Brown Metzger says.

The Caribbean, Jamaica and The Bahamas in particular, has been alert to the opportunities for growth attending the expansion of the Panama Canal, Brown Metzger continues.“The advantages of our geographical location, the ascendancy of hub-and-spoke network in global liner shipping, and the region’s significant role in cruise ship tourism all demand our responding strongly to the need for maritime professionals as trade and business opportunities reopen in the post-COVID era.”