skills

Joint statement: European Shipowners and European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) reaffirm commitment to upskilling and reskilling of seafarers The European Maritime Skills Forum held its second plenary session in Brussels, reaffirming the shared commitment of European Shipowners and seafarers' unions to address the skill challenge of the green and digital transition.

It's time for Europe to get serious about enhancing seafarers' living and working conditions and protecting its maritime jobs and maritime skills base! The time has come for the European Commission and the industry to take social dumping and unfair competition out of the EU/EEA.

A Fair and Sustainable Shipping is our proposal for a future European Maritime Space. To start building together the foundation of such a future space, an essential aspect needs to be addressed from the very beginning: how can EU initiatives contribute to sustainable and quality shipping in Europe by promoting a race to the top instead of a race to the bottom?

On World Youth Skills Day 2020, the ETF highlights the need for quality training, skills, room for professional development to attract young workers to the transport sector, but above all emphasises the need for decent working conditions!

A new report of the SkillSea project confirms that digitisation and modern technologies have been rapidly changing the maritime sector in recent years. European maritime professionals, both at sea and ashore, need more digital and soft skills to stay ahead of the industry.

Digitalisation and automation are affecting a multitude of transport jobs in all sectors. However, jobs carried out by women are particularly at risk due to digitalisation and automation which threaten to deepen existing gender inequalities in the workplace even further.