Scottish Sea Fisheries Employment Report

Summary of Quantitative Data

• The average age of the fishermen surveyed was 39.4 years and the highest proportion are found in the 35-49 age cohort.
• The composition of crew in the younger age categories is shifting to EU and non- EU workers, although British workers still make up the majority in all cohorts.
• It would also appear that young British workers are coming into the industry as demonstrated in the <21 and 21-30 year old ages cohorts.
• There is a clear increase in mean age of fishers as positions of authority and skills increase with skippers on average 8.8 years older than deckhands.
• Six EU member states have workers in the Scottish fleet. From non- EU member state, crew from five countries are present in the Scottish fishing fleet.
• 72.7% of crews are British, 17.2 are Filipino, 2.3% Lativian, 1.7% Polish, 1.4% Lithuanian and 1.3% Ghanaian. All other nationalities each comprise less than 1% of crews.
• The mobile fleets employed all of the non- EU members with the highest proportion in the Demersal <24m sector at 43%.
• For length of service on vessels, the mean length of service is 6.4 years which drops to 4 years if measured by the median. This compares to 9.5 years mean and 6.3 years median for the Scottish workforce as a whole showing job tenure is lower in the fishing industry.
• Between 21-28% of crews have worked in other marine industries. Nephrops vessels and Demersal <24m vessels have a slightly higher proportion than the other sectors
• The highest proportion have worked in aquaculture (21%) followed by the merchant navy (18%), Oil & Gas (14%) and then cargo (12%).
• With the exception of pots and traps (48%) over 50% of crew members said they would be willing to work in other marine industries.
• Of the 425 respondents who gave details of their industry qualifications 62% had at least one qualification above the Basic Safety Training. Over 90% of these qualification were with British crews and consisted of skippers tickets.
• Average weekly working hours are 38.7 for pots and traps, 56 for Demersal (>24m, seiners, pair trawl), 51 for Demersal (<24m), 49.5 for Nephrops trawl, and 48.2 for Scallop dredge.
• The highest proportion of part time workers are in the pots and traps sector at 20%
• All mobile sectors are active outside of fishing with over 50% of the vessels sampled in the demersal (<24m) fleet taking part in external work.
• Crew share is the most dominant type of remuneration agreement for British workers. EU workers have a range of agreements including crew share and contracts, some with bonuses. Non- EU workers are on contracts with a small proportion also on bonuses or crew share in addition to their contracts.