Seafood Trainee receives around 350 new, young talents that aspire to work in the seafood industry, each year. Despite this, we only manage to hire around 8%. A new report tells a different story, one in which the seafood industry has a significant employment shortage. How is this connected?

New report says the industry needs more competence

According to the fresh report from Møreforskning, there is a considerable need for competence in the seafood industry. Candidates from economic and administrative studies, natural sciences, and key industrial disciplines, among others, will be needed.

We in NCE Seafood Innovation experience that there are a lot of qualified applicants from these fields. In the last six years, 44% of the Seafood Trainees have come from economy, while the remaining have come from a diverse range of disciplines and educational institutions.

Even though we see a shortage of applicants from IT-related studies, the new graduates frequently possess the skills that the report claims are lacking. The problem appears to be that they do not find the way into enough businesses in our industry.

Future leaders must start somewhere

The report also states that the industry need more leaders, and Seafood People adds that applicants for these roles are difficult to come by. We understand how challenging it is, but we also observe that 80 % of our trainees continue in the seafood industry – and many of them move into different management roles after a few years in their company.

We believe that this demonstrates the value of working with leader recruitment on a long-term basis, and Seafood Trainee is one way to accomplish it. Because the trainees get a kick-start on their career while also learning a lot, building a network, and an understanding of the industry and their company.

How should we tackle the industry’s recruitment issues?

Since Seafood Trainee started in 2016, 188 candidates have selected the seafood industry over another industry. But it is no secret that it could have been even more if more companies had opened their doors.

Going forward, we believe that these 3 factors are important if the seafood industry is to meet its future recruitment needs.

1. We must bet on those with less work experience. New graduates have a lot of knowledge to bring instead.

2. The industry must be visible for young people at an early stage. We must start early to establish meeting arenas.

3. When it comes to recruiting leaders, we must think of two things at the same time. We must focus on new graduates, where we can develop excellent leaders over time, while also improving the industry’s attractiveness to recruit leaders from other industries.

Together with our partners and members, we work with these four factors because we believe that this is crucial for the industry. Focusing on our future employees are necessary if we are going to succeed going forward.