Farewell to personnel
Because of the world financial crisis human resources shortage in transport branch is not the burning issue as it used to be before. Nevertheless, the problem how to attract experienced employees to the sea transport sphere can not be solved by itself.
It is especially a nagging problem in Russia. Local companies can hardly offer competitive conditions to employees who can easily get the job in foreign companies. Moreover, in the nearest future because of the demographic "hole" Russia may face a severe shortage of inflow of young employees to transport branch.
According to the Department of Transportation of Russia, for last three years the number of employees in transport branch (it refers to all types of transport) has made up 2.6 million persons. In 2009 affected by economic crunch transport employees came to work in transport sphere on 5 % less. And reduction of number of employees has touched on all types of transport (except for urban transportation). Nevertheless, according to Igor Levitin the minister of transportation in Russia who made a speach last week during the second All-Russia conference «St.-Petersburg - sea capital of Russia. HR policy selection», by 2012 demand for personnel in transport area will increase on 3 % -provided labor productivity will grow on 8 %.
Against this background the personnel issue in sea transport area looks disturbing. According to Igor Levitin, being under constant pressure from the foreign charter companies, sea transport in Russia tends to replace experts in sea transport sphere by river transport workers.
According to Ivan Kostylev, the president of the state sea academy named after Admiral Makarov (St.-Petersburg), in the International sea organization (ISO) an establishment of uniform international training system for sea port workers is on agenda. As he said, in case of the positive decision demand in such system will be included into the report of summit IMO which will take place in summer of 2010 «At the present moment the international labor market of sea workers has already been formed and international ship crews, including modern tankers and gas carriers become a common case» Ivan Kostylev has explained.
The president of "Makarovka" is positive that it is necessary to bring back the practice of studying seats allocation for internees on ships.
«For transport workers where the expert mistake may have a very high price, the coarse of practical training, undoubtedly, is more than just important. We should not name particular cases of tank ship breakdown, wreck of passenger carriers and ferries. It has already been touched upon so many times, but we will notice that in most cases the reason is wrong actions taken by a person who undoubtedly knew in theory what to do in this or that case. The answers on "How to do that?" and "How productive is it going to be "could be found only when you have experience, Ivan Kostylev remarks.
Besides, according to the head of academy, it is necessary to unite training of experts in transport sphere and fishing fleet. «The seaman is always a seaman, and the specificity can be trained in addition», - the president of academy considers. Merging of sea transport school and school of fishermen will cut down expenses on education in water transport as a whole, at the expense of integration of personnel and material resources, will increase possibilities of use of industrial ships for the practice organization.
According to Ivan Kostylev, the basic preconditions of high training of experts of sea transport are educational fleet, establishment of preferences transport ships with trainees onboard and development of training base.
The chief of Organizational legal department of federal agency in sea and river transportation sphere Alexander Samsonov considers that the shipping companies in Russia do not take active part in training of shipboard personnel, and mechanisms of state-private partnership in this area do not function. «Participation of the shipping companies in a professional training is limited to contracts on partial recovery of expenses in volume of 5-7 % from necessary costs on training program, - Alexander Samsonov says. -At the same time only shipping companies are ready to interact on contractual conditions.
Besides, there is another problem how to save scientific-teaching structure of corresponding educational institutions. In modern difficult economic conditions, according to Alexander Samsonov, the basic personnel problems are such as sharp reduction of number of young experts who go for postgraduate and doctoral studies and wish to devote themselves to teaching work. The other problem is so-called «hidden migration» when highly experienced teachers of the higher institutions are compelled to engage in activity that does not have anything in common with educational process because of economic difficulties. In its turn that leads to a loss of qualification, interest and responsibility in teaching work.
In 2009 the placement of students of Rosmorrechflot has made up: 5395 people enrolled in the higher education (the graduated students - 5082 people, bachelors - 302 people and masters- 11 people), 5742 people enrolled in secondary education, including 4672 full time student.
In 2009 8998 people graduated from high institutions, 3642 of them studied at the expense of the federal budget, including 2764 people enrolled in full-time course of study. 5213 people graduated from secondary institutions, 4362 people- at the expense of the federal budget, including 3483 people enrolled in full-time course of study.
Vitaly Chernov.