Korea's shipping and its related industries have been growing drastically since early 1960s. As of January 2008, tonnage under the flag of the country ranked 6th in the world and its shipbuilding industry is second to none for a long time. Among the industries, ship management business has played a critical role and has had a huge ripple effect on the other industries in that field. It has contributed to acquiring foreign-exchange, increasing tonnage, and improving the technology of vessel operation and shipbuilding skills.
However, due to long-term recession in 1980s, the number of well-trained seafarers has been decreased sharply. According to its forecast in 2005, the BIM/ISF expected that there would be a crew shortage as many as the number of 30,000 by 2015. Thus, securing sufficient number of skilled seamen become one of the key success factors in ship management industry. And the ship management industry of Korea has contained a structural contradiction to establish its own competitiveness.
The purpose of this study is to investigate efficient ways of crew management and ultimately revitalization of ship management industry. This study consists of two parts: literature and empirical studies. The conclusions are as belows.
First is deregulation on the industry. The government should remove or reduce restrictions. This includes permitting management firms to make sub-contracts between themselves and simplifying the regulations on their hiring foreign crews. Second is nurturing skilled foreign, as well as domestic, crews.