From the above discussion, it should be clear that the future demand for seafarers will be driven by number of factors, the same that determine present demand. They are :
- The future growth of world trade, and hence the growth in the world fleet.
-
The future growth of ship productivity, which will be determined by the technology embodied in new ships.
- The changing vintage of the fleet, which will alter the crew levels required for safe manning
-
Changes in the required levels of manning to comply with national and international conventions as and when they alter
-
Changes in the flag composition of the world fleet, because this affects overall manning totals
-
Changes in the proportions of non-national crews used by ship owners and ship management companies, as this affects the ‘typical manning levels.
Projecting world trade and fleet growth in aggregate is the easiest of these tasks. The change in the vintage will be determined by scrapping and ordering decisions, which can be very volatile. Projecting changes in national attitudes to the implementation and enforcement of labour regulations is probably best avoided.
Putting the demand estimates together with supply generates the result that there appears to be an excess demand for officers (of 10,000, or 2% of supply) and an excess supply of ratings (of 135,000, or 19% of supply). Both the officer and ratings estimates are well within the margin of error of the supply data, given the comments about data reliability.