America's Maritime Labor Shortage

 

Since Donald Trump's inauguration, his Administration has been working to boost the nation's maritime industry. The goal is to overcome the national security risks from our shrinking fleets and shipbuilding capacity.

The issue has become more acute as China's navy has surpassed the U.S.'s in number of ships, although not in firepower. The fleet size gap will grow since China builds ships faster than the U.S., an issue that demands resolution. The U.S. commercial fleet is also shrinking.

Solving the shipbuilding problem is a chicken-and-egg challenge. Aging shipyard infrastructures, worker shortages and obsolete business models inflate the cost of U.S.-built ships, which further deters new orders. The industry has been in a death spiral for decades. According to the consultant McKinsey, U.S. newbuilds output has fallen by more than 85 percent since the 1950s. Similarly, the number of American shipyards capable of building blue-ocean vessels has dropped more than 80 percent. Another source that tracked the number of shipyards capable of building navy and large ocean-going commercial vessels shows a decline from 46 in 1955 to 20 today.

BIPARTISAN SUPPORT

Trump's focus is on revitalizing our withering shipbuilding and commercial shipping industries. For once, there's bipartisan support for doing so. Trump's plan was announced in an April 9 Executive Order: "It is the policy of the United States to revitalize and rebuild domestic maritime industries and workforce to promote national security and economic prosperity."

The EO lists actions and timeframes for governmental response. Specific actions include launching a maritime security trust fund, providing financial incentives for domestic shipbuilding, establishing maritime prosperity zones, requiring a specified volume of U.S.-China trade travel in U.S.-flag vessels, expanding mariner training and education and modernizing the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.

The plan also calls for consultation and coordination with our allies on aligning trade policies and helping foreign shipbuilding companies invest in the U.S.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE WELDERS GONE?

A critical issue for shipbuilding and ship repair is skilled labor.

A review of U.S. shipyard employment trends shows it's been stable over the past decade. However, ship and boat-building employment, as tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows March's 145,000 workers to be ten percent below the level of the 2000s. Compared to the 1980s, when there was a significant upswing in shipbuilding following the 1973 oil embargo, shipyard employment is down nearly 30 percent.

Today's employment numbers and even those of the last shipbuilding boom pale in comparison to the 1.4 million shipyard workers during the height of World War II, who were able to deliver U.S. warships in weeks and months, not years. Today, ships require years of construction while costing hundreds of millions for commercial vessels and billions for Navy ships. Time and money put the U.S. at risk of extortion in the event of a military conflict.

A 2025 study by shipuniverse.com discussing shipbuilding's revival under the Trump Administration highlights some of the headwinds. Heading the list are labor shortages and workforce attrition. Like many basic manufacturing industries in the U.S., shipyards struggle to find and retain skilled workers, which contributes to production delays and limits the industry's ability to meet growing ship orders, especially for Navy contracts.

ATTRACTIVE CAREER MOVE

The shortage of skilled labor is not a secret. The issue is receiving increased attention given the problems and cost of higher education.

Instead of going to college, a skilled worker can generate a six-figure income in a few years without the overhang of thousands of dollars of student loans. That can be an attractive career move. Furthermore, the public is no longer looking down upon skilled workers. That's because plumbers, electricians, mechanics and HVAC workers, to name a few occupations, are hard to find and expensive when contracted.

Few of us consumer-types are looking for pipefitters and foundry workers, but they're hard to find, too. Just ask a shipyard manager!

JOB DISPLACEMENT & OTHER CHALLENGES

Both the newbuild and ship repair sectors are affected.

BLS Employment Projections for 2022-2032 show key maritime manufacturing trades being displaced by higher demand from battery and semiconductor production, which it labels "adjacent maritime subindustries." BLS estimates these subindustries will create 33,000 more jobs. At the same time, it foresees 39,000 fewer jobs in key trades such as fabricated metal products, aerospace products and parts, ship and boat-building and foundries.

Changing the BLS labor market dynamic will require creative approaches to hiring and retaining workers. The challenges are manyfold: Inadequate investment in shipyard equipment, regional concentration of jobs, lack of career development paths and higher-paying opportunities in other manufacturing industries with more attractive futures – to name a few. These issues are also responsible for many new shipbuilding employees leaving within their first year of work.

Shipyards have long relied on volume-based hiring. Because of increased competition, a greater emphasis on the quality of the hire will be key. That means finding ways to reduce the cost to acquire workers, finding those more likely to learn quickly and hiring those less likely to leave. The latter point may require changes in company cultures and business models to provide more attractive career opportunities.

THE "ROTATIONAL WORKFORCE" INITIATIVE

An innovative hiring approach has been developed by Bartlett Maritime Corporation Founder & CEO, Edward Bartlett, Jr. His company, which is involved in submarine maintenance, has created a labor program called "Rotational Workforce" and recently agreed to partner with the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers in its implementation.

As Bartlett explained in a presentation at the union's annual conference, the idea is to find a way to attract skilled workers from the middle of the country to work in coastal shipyards without having to relocate. It means providing employment opportunities for skilled workers facing dismal prospects at home, who do not live near the coasts or have never worked in a shipyard.

The Rotational Workforce Program is a pilot effort that will cooperate with the Boilermakers to put qualified welders from across the country into a shipyard on a rotational basis to increase workforce capacity beyond the geographical boundaries of the shipyard's location.

The program enables shipyards to hire workers from the "heartland of our nation and find people who have the skills, training, and experience to do these jobs – but who don't want to leave their homes and permanently relocate near a shipyard or other key suppliers," Bartlett told the Boilermakers.

The rotational workforce model is based on the oil and gas industry's successful offshore labor scheme. Workers on drilling rigs and platforms live and work on the facility for several weeks or a month at a time. They then return home for a similar period. While offshore, they work 12-hour shifts daily. They're provided with accommodations, meals, recreational facilities and healthcare.

It's not a lifestyle for everyone, but it's an attractive opportunity to earn high wages while still being able to live at home half the year. Many offshore workers can even sustain sideline businesses during their at-home periods.

WORTH A TRY

Bartlett acknowledged the success of this work schedule for offshore oil and gas operations but noted that the shipbuilding and ship repair industries had never tried it.

In his presentation, he pointed to the weak employment outlook for manufacturing jobs in the Midcontinent region. He cited how, in his hometown of Cleveland, Ford Motor Company used to operate three engine manufacturing plants employing 33,000 skilled workers. Over the years, these plants were shut down and jobs transferred to new plants in Canada. Ford now has one small engine plant employing 1,600 workers.

The Ford plants were located near the Cleveland airport, which is now the preferred site for a new Cleveland Browns football stadium. Its construction would employ 10,000 workers, but they would not be permanent jobs – something workers, especially younger workers, want and need. The rotational workforce program offers an alternative employment opportunity for such displaced manufacturing workers.

In the 1970s, skilled workers who lost their manufacturing jobs in the Northeast and Midwest due to the harsh recessions of that period gladly relocated to the oilfields of Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana to find employment. Workers today are less likely to want to uproot their families and relocate to different regions.

An innovative approach like the rotational workforce program may help solve shipyard labor shortages. It's worked for the international energy industry for decades.