In response to a hard-won boom in the shipbuilding industry and a growing manpower shortage, South Korea will establish a public-private training center that will train 1,000 professionals a year in fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), environmentally friendly ships and autonomous ships, which will then serve as a future growth engine for the country’s shipbuilding industry.
On March 20, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) of South Korea inaugurated the “training center for future innovative human resources in shipbuilding industry” at HD Hyundai Group’s Global Research Center (GRC). The MOTIE, Korea Offshore & Shipbuilding Association (KOSHIPA), and HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (HD KSOE), the intermediate holding company for HD Hyundai Group’s shipbuilding business, attended the opening ceremony.
The “training center for future innovative human resources in shipbuilding industry” is a human resource training project jointly promoted by the Korean government and shipbuilding companies to solve the problem of long-term shortage of technical talents in the shipbuilding industry.
With a total investment of 6.4 billion won (about $4.771 million), of which 4.8 billion won (about $3.578 million) is government-funded, the center will train about 1,000 in-service shipbuilders and university students majoring in related disciplines in four futuristic fields, such as artificial intelligence/big data, environmentally friendly ships, autonomous ships and smart shipyards, according to the actual needs of shipbuilders.
The related on-site training will be conducted by utilizing the established infrastructures across South Korea such as the Hydrogen Ship Technology Center in Busan, the Gyeongsangnam-do Small and Medium Shipyard Production Technology Innovation Center, and the Demonstration Center for Autonomous Ships in Ulsan.
The two newest centers are the Metropolitan Education Center at the HD Hyundai Global R&D Center in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, and the Southeast Regional Training Center at the Samsung Heavy Industries DT Campus in Geoje, Gyeongsangnam Province, and the public-private partnership plans to expand these centers to more major regions in the future.
It is understood that the shipbuilding industry is South Korea’s traditional export-oriented industries, has been with the Chinese shipbuilding enterprises to carry out a fierce battle for orders in the global market.
In recent years, South Korean shipbuilders are gradually shifting the focus of orders to LNG carriers, liquid ammonia carriers and other high value-added environmentally friendly ships through the order screening strategy, in order to comply with the global trend of decarbonization. As global carbon emission regulations continue to tighten, the market for LNG and liquid ammonia carriers is growing. Currently, South Korean shipbuilders dominate in the field of liquid ammonia carriers. Chinese shipbuilders are also catching up in the field of high value-added vessels.
South Korea’s MOTIE related personnel said, “Ensuring high-quality human resources is a key issue for South Korea’s shipbuilding industry to capitalize on the order boom in the last four years, and the South Korean government will take all measures to ensure that South Korea’s shipbuilding industry will not suffer from a shortage of shipbuilding human resources in the future.”
To solve manpower problems and expand competitive advantages, the MOTIE also announced the launch of the government-participatory cooperation platform “K-Shipbuilding Next Generation Initiative” on March 5 to discuss the direction of the major transformation of the shipbuilding industry and to explore related issues such as exporting ships and securing technological advantages. The program will discuss the direction of the major transformation of the shipbuilding industry, ship exports, and securing technological advantages.
During the first meeting of the “Korea Next Generation Shipbuilding Program”, the Korean government signed the “Joint Response Agreement to Ensure Super Gap Competitiveness of Korea’s Shipbuilding Industry” with the three major KHD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (HD KSOE), Hanwha Ocean and Samsung Heavy Industries as well as the Korea Association of Shipbuilding & Offshore Supporting Facilities (KASOF). According to the agreement, the Korean government and the three major shipbuilding enterprises will invest 9 trillion won (about 67.6 billion U.S. dollars) in the next five years to further ensure Korea’s “super-gap” technological advantage in the field of shipbuilding.
During the first meeting of the “Korea Next Generation Shipbuilding Program”, the Korean government signed the “Joint Response Agreement to Ensure Super Gap Competitiveness of Korea’s Shipbuilding Industry” with the three major Korean shipbuilding companies (HD Korea Shipbuilding & Marine, Hanwha Marine and Samsung Heavy Industries) and the Korea Shipbuilding & Marine Supporting Equipment Association. According to the agreement, the Korean government and the three major shipbuilding companies will invest 9 trillion won (about 6.76 billion U.S. dollars) over the next five years to further ensure Korea’s “super-gap” technological advantage in shipbuilding.
Meanwhile, the Korean government also announced during the conference that it will establish a labor supply and demand forecasting system to prevent disruption of the shipbuilding process due to labor shortages.
Korea plans to train 2,000 domestic shipbuilding professionals and production workers annually through the “Training Center for Innovative Talents for the Future of the Shipbuilding Industry” and the “Job Seekers Recruitment Linkage Education Program”.
On this basis, HD KSOE, Hanwha Ocean, and Samsung Heavy Industries jointly decided to pilot the “Overseas Shipbuilding Manpower Cooperation Center” in the first half of this year to ensure that foreign laborers are trained locally and then reintroduced into the system.
There are already concerns in the South Korean industry that it will be difficult to cultivate high-quality shipbuilding human resources as the willingness of South Korean students to choose shipbuilding majors declines. According to the Korea Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Association, Korean shipbuilders will have about 9,400 researchers and designers as of 2022, a sharp drop of about one-third compared to 2014, when the shipbuilding industry was booming (more than 14,000 people).