Revisiting seafarers’ skills in the twenty-first century: a modified Delphi-BWM approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT The maritime sector plays a crucial role in global trade and economics. The competitive and rapidly growing sector requires a highly trained workforce with specific skills, especially for the twenty-first-century revolutions. Since, industry 4.0 entails the modernisation of work, which is likely to impact individuals’ required skills, especially for seafarers in the foreseeable future. Furthermore, discussions on future maritime operations competencies frequently emphasize technology as a prerequisite for seafarers’ ability to adapt to change. The paper seeks to explore seafarers’ required skills, especially for the twenty-first century, using the modified Delphi method and Best Worst Method (BWM), which is a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) technique. Ten skills have been identified from the derived outcomes, divided into two segments: hard skills and soft skills. Technical and theoretical knowledge has been identified as the most influential hard skill, and communication skill as the most critical soft skill. The study will benefit seafarers and organisations related to training and hiring seafarers for making their decisions on the training and hiring process.