Misconceptions about the seafood industry are putting off young talent

Campaign developed by Seafish aims to help industry attract young jobseekers

The next generation see the seafood industry as low skilled and unexciting, leaving seafood businesses struggling to recruit fresh, young talent.

Seafish, the public body that supports the £10bn UK seafood industry, is calling for the industry to prioritise attracting young people to jobs in the sector, following research which highlighted a number of misconceptions that are currently putting them off.

To better understand attitudes and the barriers that exist, Seafish commissioned research to find out what young people (between the ages of 16 and 18) thought about careers in the seafood sector. The findings make for worrying reading as many of those who took part thought the industry only offered limited career prospects and that friends would make fun of them for working with fish.

The research has informed a new practical guide, designed to help seafood businesses understand what they can do to attract young people. It builds upon The World is Your Oyster campaign which Seafish launched in 2015 to appeal to young jobseekers and highlight the benefits of working in the seafood industry. Seafish is now encouraging seafood businesses to use the updated campaign materials to support recruitment. The free materials, which include a film, infographics and seafood career maps, are also available to schools and colleges.

There has been a recent push to shine the light on some of the inspirational young people already working in the industry through the Young Seafood Leaders Network, run by Seafish, and various industry awards for Young Fisherman of the Year, Young Seafood Chefs of the Year, Young Fishmonger of the Year and Young Fish Frier of the Year. However, the seafood industry is still struggling to attract young talent across the board. This impact of this is potentially even greater for pockets of the industry that rely quite heavily on EU labour with uncertainty around Brexit still on the horizon.

Marcus Coleman, CEO at Seafish, said: “We were already aware of some issues around attracting young jobseekers to seafood careers, but this research has highlighted the misconceptions and perceived barriers that we need to overcome to win over the next generation of talent. It includes a lot of valuable insights which we’ve used to inform a new practical guide for industry that’s full of recruitment advice.

“As a collective seafood industry, we need to shine a light on the positive stories and show young people that it’s possible to carve out an exciting and rewarding career. We need to shout about all the different jobs that are available and the fact that seafood careers can offer young people a chance to travel the world, to become a leader or own a business. With this in mind, we’ve also updated our The World is Your Oyster campaign materials and made them freely available to help get these key messages out.

“Our seafood industry is thriving but we can’t afford to be complacent - it’s vital that we attract young people who can bring so much energy and insight and keep it vibrant for years to come.”

The world is your oyster

It would seem that recruiting young people to vocations that requires tolerance of long or unsociable hours, uncomfortable or challenging physical and environmental conditions, tolerance of what mother nature might throw our way or repetitive tasks i s fast becoming the number one challenge in modern Britain. Seafish's report provides some pretty uncomfortable reading for those who need to recruit staff from their local communities.

For many years, agriculture in particular has in the UK has relied heavily on seasonal workers from out of area or abroad - now the fishing industry seems to have followed suit. It has not gone unnoticed that many UK fishing vessels and fish processing plants are now heavily dependent on workers from abroad.

While this may suit individual business owners there may be consequences in the mid to long term with regard to recruitment for those skilled roles requiring consistency and continuity of service and supply - ie skippers, mates, engineers, production managers and managers from local communities.

Signs that this is more than a temporary hiccup have been acknowledged at the very highest level of government are in that next month will see the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fishing hold the first of its meetings to discuss the issue at a national level.

Here's Seafish CEO, Marcus Coleman and his monthly catch-up talking about this very issue!

Seafish maintain a comprehensive section for apprenticeships for every aspect of the fishing industry on their website.

These issues are not unique to the UK of course - take a look at the current campaign in France on the same subject New Horizons - (hint - use Translate) - seems those pesky grenouilles are one step ahead of the UK again!