Shipyards launch skills offensive

YOU might describe it as the ultimate re-launch. Hitherto synonymous with hard graft and no-nonsense labour, the Scottish trade of shipbuilding is to be subjected to a glitzy new promotional campaign, complete with a movie-star endorsement, as part of a bid to fill a huge skills gap on the Clyde and Forth.

Desperate Housewives star Dougray Scott has been brought in as the face of the modern dockyards, as enterprise chiefs plough £600,000 into an advertising drive to persuade young Scots, typically more tempted by careers in IT or the City, that building ships has a future.

The push comes as the entire British shipbuilding industry gears up for the huge task of building the two new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, in a contract worth £3.8bn.

The ships will be partly built at the BAE Systems yard in Govan before being towed to Babcock's dry dock at Rosyth for assembly. In total, it is estimated that some 1,500 jobs in Scotland will be created.

The deals are now placing massive strain on current levels of available labour in Scotland and the rest of the UK, as the industry competes with other huge construction projects such as the Olympics facilities and the new Forth Road Bridge.

Scotland on Sunday can reveal that shipbuilders will be forced to bring in migrant workers from other parts of Europe to build the carriers, with workers being employed from Poland and elsewhere in Europe because of the shortages.

But Enterprise chiefs are now hoping their own drive will help fill the gap with workers from home.

Scott was drafted in to be the voice of a new DVD which will be sent to schools later this year in which he reflects on his own background in Fife. The actor was born in Glenrothes and has spoken of how, had he not found acting, he would have ended up working in Rosyth.

In addition, further education colleges will start new HNC qualifications in shipbuilding from this September. It will mark the first time in 40 years that youngsters can gain a qualification in building ships, marking a return to the heyday of the industry.

The jobs on offer vary from naval architects to engineers, and electricians to welders.

Ian McMahon, from Scottish Enterprise's Scottish Marine Technologies Training Project said: "This is about trying to target people who maybe haven't thought about shipbuilding as a career. We asked Dougray Scott to get involved and he was more than happy to do so. He could have worked at Rosyth because of his background.

"The aim of it is to lift the heart and make people feel good about Scotland and shipbuilding. This is about the future – we are trying to get people who wouldn't have thought about shipbuilding as a career to think again about it.

"We are in the business of building very complex ships. These are not the kind of ships you build in China or Korea."

He added: "Many, many years ago there was a qualification in shipbuilding. If we want kids to aspire to a job in shipbuilding then we have to offer them a qualification. We're trying to say that there is a good-quality, long-term job here which you might want to look at."

Both Babcock and BAE systems are now gearing up for the huge task of recruiting enough labour for the job, with both looking for hundreds of apprentices. But there are fears that the efforts will still not be enough to cope.

John Howie, managing director at Babcock's Rosyth naval dockyard, said: "We have actually been pretty lucky in that most of our recruitment comes from the local area. But the aircraft carrier as a whole has a recruitment challenge as it comes at a time when a lot of big infrastructure projects such as the new Forth Road Bridge, the London Olympics and work for the Commonwealth Games are all coming on stream. Against this backdrop we will be competing for steelworkers, mechanical and electrical fitters."

He added: "There will be a fair amount of labour being brought in from outside the UK."

Last week, Kevin Sweeney, deputy head of Govan High School in Glasgow, warned that his local area – once the source of much of the country's shipbuilding labour – would find it difficult to supply people this time round.

He told MPs: "With the present level of resourcing in technological education, it is going to be a struggle to meet those (recruitment] targets."

Bernie Hamilton, national officer for shipbuilding at the union Unite, said the recruitment challenge would be vast.

He said: "This has been talked about for some time already. Everyone recognises that we will have to do a lot of things when the different yards reach their peak output."

He added: "We also recognise that there is a potential that we will have to augment the UK workforce with migrant labour."

Labour MSP John Park, who is driving through a bill at Holyrood to ensure that anyone between 16 and 18 can have an apprenticeship, said: "There is a UK shortage of skilled labour in this area. You're talking about engineers, electricians, pipe fitters, mechanical fitters.

"There is a real premium for that right now. We have got time on our side here. BAE and Babcock both train up a lot of apprentices but they need to maximise this opportunity. They are going to make a lot of money out of these public contracts so they need to do more."

Demise of a proud heritage

PRODUCTION

c.1850 – shipyards of Glasgow and Dumbarton built half of the UK's iron steamships.

1880s – steel replaced iron.

Late 1800s – Scotland produced up to a third of all ships built worldwide.

1913 – 18% of world's ships built on Clyde.

1913 – 756,976 tons launched from Scottish yards – more than US and German production combined.

1955 – 485,000 production peak of gross tons launched from Clyde shipyards.

1986-1997 – Scottish shipbuilding output fell by 33%.

EMPLOYMENT

1921 – A peak of 100,000 were employed in shipbuilding in Scotland. Decline followed in the 1920s and 1930s, then there was a brief post-war resurgence when German and Japanese shipyards were destroyed.

1955 – almost 100,000 employed before the numbers headed into steep decline.

1996 – 10,100 people employed in shipbuilding in Scotland, 4% of Scotland's manufacturing employment.

2004 – 5,400 people employed in Scotland's shipbuilding industry, 25% of UK's shipbuilding output.