Shipyards Fight Shortage of Workers
U.S. Shipbuilders Grapple With Shortage of Skilled, Experience Labor Amid Rise in Orders
Dirk VanEnkevort wanted to take advantage of a shipbuilding boom when his family's company leased one of the largest dry docks in the Great Lakes region in 2005. But now he is so short-handed he has turned to robots to help keep up.
His company, Erie Shipbuilding LLC, has since hired about 150 workers and equipped the facility on Lake Erie with sophisticated metalworking tools including robots. It now has orders to build eight oceangoing barges and plans to hire additional workers as needed.
But as his order book fills, VanEnkevort faces a problem hampering dozens of other midsize commercial shipyards across the country: a shortage of skilled, experienced workers capable of assembling and welding freight ships.
To fight the shortage, VanEnkevort and other shipbuilders have scoured the country and recruited from afar. They have appealed to prospective employees at local high schools and started in-house training programs. VanEnkevort says his company plans to use robotic welders extensively.
Some shipyards have temporarily hired foreign laborers, including from Mexico and countries in Eastern Europe, under a federal program that allows businesses to obtain so-called H2B visas if they prove efforts to hire locally were unsuccessful.
"There hasn't been any shipbuilding in Erie for quite some time," said VanEnkevort, 52. "So those people that were here are doing other things or moved away. We've just got to find people and train them, which is what we're doing."
After topping 100,000 in 1998, employment in the U.S. commercial shipbuilding and repair industry hovered around 91,000 to 92,000 for six years before climbing to 93,600 in 2006, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
At the same time, demand has soared, mostly at midsize shipyards. The industry though tiny on a global scale and prone to dramatic boom-and-bust cycles has seen its largest expansion since the 1970s in recent years.
The growth has been propelled by demand from shipping companies that are replacing or expanding fleets of aging tankers, tug boats, offshore supply vessels and other boats, in some cases to meet the fast-changing needs of the energy sector.
