How to deal with the shortage of shipbuilding talents, the Tongtaiyang cluster of large shipbuilding and large ships

Recently, the 2024 National Advanced Manufacturing Cluster Development Conference for High-tech Ships and Offshore Equipment and the Ship and Offshore Industry Exhibition were held in Nantong, Jiangsu. The conference was themed "Developing new quality productivity, promoting new industrialization, and building a world-class ship and offshore industry cluster", and worked together to promote the Tongtaiyang Ship and Offshore National Advanced Manufacturing Cluster to a world-class cluster.

As an important base of my country's shipbuilding industry, Jiangsu has a highly concentrated industry. Its three major shipbuilding indicators have been ranked first in the country for many years and it also occupies an important position in the world. Nantong, Taizhou and Yangzhou are the epitome of the high-quality development of Jiangsu's shipbuilding industry. Last year, the three cities of Tongtaiyang signed a strategic cooperation agreement on the development of a national advanced manufacturing industry cluster for shipbuilding and offshore engineering, and jointly built a world-class advanced manufacturing industry cluster for shipbuilding and offshore engineering in Tongtaiyang. The three cities jointly proposed: strive to achieve a market share of about 20% of the world by 2025, a localization rate of 65% for key supporting equipment for mainstream ship types, and a supporting capacity of 25% for offshore engineering, and build a high-level, landmark, world-class advanced manufacturing industry cluster for shipbuilding and offshore engineering.

Looking across the country, China's shipbuilding industry has ranked first in the world in terms of international market share for 14 consecutive years, and has maintained a high growth rate in the first half of this year. According to data from the China Shipbuilding Industry Association, in the first half of this year, my country's shipbuilding completion volume, new orders and backlog orders increased by 18.4%, 43.9% and 38.6% year-on-year respectively, accounting for 55%, 74.7% and 58.9% of the world market share, making it the only country in the world to achieve comprehensive growth in the three major indicators. The backlog of orders of many shipbuilding companies has been scheduled until 2027-2028.

Another notable trend is that while the total volume of my country's shipbuilding has increased, the structure of ship types has changed significantly. At present, among the 18 major ship types in the world, my country ranks first in the world in terms of new orders for 14 types of ship types. It not only maintains a leading position in traditional fields such as tankers, bulk carriers, and container ships, but also has made significant breakthroughs in emerging fields such as car carriers and gas carriers.

With the renewal of global shipping and the surge in market demand, China's shipbuilding industry has entered a new round of cyclical growth. At the same time, the problem of talent shortage has become increasingly prominent, especially the rapid increase in shipyards' demand for high-tech talents and highly skilled workers. In this regard, Chen Minjun, executive vice president of the China Shipbuilding Industry Association, believes that China's shipbuilding market share remains the world's leading, providing a broad practice platform for maritime talents, while also giving rise to a large demand for highly skilled maritime talents.

The "Guidelines for Talent Development Planning in the Manufacturing Industry" jointly issued by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology predicts that by 2025, the talent gap in the field of marine engineering equipment and high-tech ships will reach 266,000, most of whom are technical and skilled talents. The labor gap of assemblers and welders in some ship companies is even close to 30%.

Looking abroad, as the global shipbuilding industry enters a "super cycle", Korean shipbuilding companies are accelerating the training of technical talents to cope with the "talent shortage" caused by a substantial increase in orders. In contrast, in my country, in addition to graduates of related majors being "persuaded to withdraw" due to the working environment and work intensity of the shipyard, there is also a gap between the practical ability of graduates and market demand. What is more worrying is that as the shipbuilding industry transforms towards green and intelligent directions, the training of compound talents is far from meeting market demand. According to statistics from China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, there is currently an extreme shortage of outstanding engineering talents who understand shipbuilding and marine engineering manufacturing, green and intelligent technologies, and the talent gap is as high as 6,000 people/year. In addition, compound talents who are proficient in international rule-making, maritime law, maritime carbon emissions, and ship intelligent manufacturing are also in short supply.

On September 13, during the Ship and Offshore Industry Exhibition, the 3rd China-UK Maritime Services and Talent Development Cooperation Forum was held in Nantong. Several experts at the meeting said that in order to effectively alleviate the talent shortage in China's shipbuilding industry, it requires joint efforts from the government, enterprises, schools, and relevant industry organizations to promote the high-quality development of various types of talents, so as to continuously promote the high-quality development of the shipbuilding industry. At the forum, British Deputy Trade Envoy to China, Stephen Schwartz, said that the UK has made substantial progress in cooperation with China in international engineer training and certification. He said: "I expect that more Chinese and British institutions and enterprises will reach a partnership to jointly explore a new model for the training of Chinese and British maritime skilled talents."

What tricks does Nantong have to solve the talent problem? Zhu Weimin, deputy director of the Nantong Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, said that the reason why Nantong has become an important shipbuilding base in my country is that "it is driven by all kinds of talents." In recent years, Nantong has taken the lead in Jiangsu Province to implement the talent-driven and innovation-driven strategies in the form of people's congress legislation, and has insisted on helping enterprises transform and promoting the vigorous development of the shipbuilding and offshore engineering industries through upgrading and iterating policies.

Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, which produces many shipbuilding talents, has many students who have already devoted themselves to the research and development of the latest technologies in the field of shipbuilding before graduation. Every year, a large number of graduates in the field of shipbuilding enter the Tongtaiyang industrial cluster and even major shipbuilding companies across the country with new technologies. Zhou Hong, deputy dean of the Graduate School of Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, analyzed that this is due to the co-construction model of industry associations, universities, research institutes and enterprises established by the school. This model "highlights the transformation of innovative results of industry, academia and research, and truly conducts research and development in enterprises and writes papers on products." In recent years, the school has cooperated with Jiangsu shipbuilding companies to develop more than 30 new ship types, adding nearly 25 billion yuan in profits to the companies.

It is precisely because of the attention of the local government and the help of various talents that the Tongtaiyang Ship and Offshore National Advanced Manufacturing Cluster has the confidence to leap to a world-class cluster and participate in global competition. Take Nantong as an example. In May this year, the Jiangsu Coastal Area High-Quality Development Work Conference was held in Nantong, sounding the clarion call for a new round of maritime development; earlier this month, the "Decision" adopted by the Seventh Plenary Session of the 14th Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee clearly supported the high-quality development of Nantong's marine industry. Nantong Mayor Zhang Tong said that Nantong will focus on promoting the agglomeration and development of the entire marine economy, anchoring the high-end, green, intelligent and international direction of ship and offshore engineering, supporting enterprises to develop high-performance, high-tech and high-value products, and accelerating the completion and strengthening of key supporting equipment, core components and basic material chains, promoting the coordinated development of ship and offshore professional services and production and manufacturing such as R&D design, integrated assembly, inspection and certification, maintenance and operation, and financial leasing, and strive to move towards a world-class ship and offshore cluster.