Trainee Seafarers/Mariners Perception Towards a Career in Sailing

The global shipping industry is increasingly relying on India as a favored source of its current and future seafarer demand. Currently, in some parts of the world, particularly the traditional maritime countries, there is an apparent reluctance on the part of young people to choose seafaring as a profession. And even for those young people who do make that choice, their careers at sea are often short as they are either unwilling or unable to take on higher duties or, even more importantly, they actively chose not to remain at sea. This paper explores the trainee seafarers/mariners perception towards sailing career, the reasons for choosing sailing career, their preference to continue sailing etc. The study has been conducted among one batch of trainee mariners at CIFNET, Chennai. The study findings reveal that interest towards adopting sailing as a career is very less among the trainee seafarers and the primary reason behind choosing sailing is for its good salary and tax break. Moreover only 5% of the trainee seafarers stated that they will continue sailing and will not quit the profession even after few years of sailing. However the demand for seafarers is increasing globally. In short, a career at sea has to be more attractive a proposition for youngsters than the available alternatives ashore. The industry has, to do much more to improve the way it is perceived and the sociological and financial factors, which explain the limited attraction to a seafaring career