Sector wide human capital strategy

We are working hard on a sector wide human capital strategy with the aim of providing the maritime sector with enough suitable personnel on a sustainable basis. This is necessary to counterbalance demographic shifts and to prepare the sector for the work of the future.

The maritime sector is one of the most versatile sectors in our country. It includes not only shipping and the navy, but also shipbuilding, the offshore energy sector and hydraulic engineering, maritime service providers and suppliers, ports, and fisheries. Thanks to this enormous variety, the sector offers employment to the most diverse professions: from maritime officer to fisher, from welder to engineer, and from supply chain manager to maritime lawyer.

Due to this diversity, many different consultation structures and partnerships have arisen over the years, each focused on tackling the problems in its own subsector or region. All these separate groups are no longer sufficient. In fact, they often get in each other’s way due to a lack of overarching coordination. This leads to fragmented initiatives, short-term thinking, and duplication of efforts.

The Maritime Council wants to change this and has therefore commissioned the Human Capital Council to develop a sector wide human capital strategy which focuses on the long-term needs of the entire sector.

We do this by mapping existing initiatives, identifying long-term needs, and proposing sustainable solutions to remove bottlenecks.
Within the Maritime Master Plan, we also pay attention to human capital so that knowledge development among personnel keeps pace with the newly developed sustainable technologies.