Analyses of Employment Costs for Shipping Companies' Domestic and Foreign Seafarers

Abstract

The robust development of global economics and trading activities results in rapid growth in the shipping industry recently. However, the production of vessels is increasing faster than the numbers of available seafarers. From the viewpoint of economics, this paper focuses on analyzing employment costs of seafarers, including the differences between domestic and foreign seafarers, and, further, comparing the level of variations in employment costs. The results revealed that shipping companies can save up to 50.4% costs per vessel annually in Taiwan by employing foreign seafarers. In the variations of seafarers' employment costs, both domestic and foreign seafarers' in 2008 presented an upward trend, 31.30% and 58.43% respectively, and their annual growth rate 5.22% and 9.74%. This paper will be helpful for shipping companies in examining strategies for employing seafarers and can serve as a good reference for government agencies involved in the education of seafarers.