YASUHIRO MORIZONO, Nikkei staff writer
NYK Line is fostering future captains and chief engineers in the Philippines.
TOKYO -- Many Japanese companies are keen to globalize their payrolls. They see this as their ticket to surviving ever fiercer international competition, though finding the right people can be a challenge.
Nippon Yusen, a major Japanese shipping company known as NYK Line, is convinced it has found a treasure trove of talent: the Philippines.
The company recently promoted a Filipino employee to the post of captain on a liquefied natural gas carrier. The 37-year-old had worked as an NYK Line sailor for nearly two decades. Now he is responsible for transporting LNG from Qatar to Japan.
The company entered the LNG shipping business in 1983. It sees the fuel as its cash cow of the future. It has had Filipino captains and chief engineers on other types of vessels, but never before on an LNG carrier, which is considered a top-level gig. In another recent first, a Filipino landed a chief engineer post on an LNG ship.
Koichi Akamine, NYK Line's senior managing corporate officer, admits he "never imagined we would have a Filipino captain and a Filipino chief engineer."
Diverse to a point
Japan's shipping sector has long been more diverse than certain other industries. This is because shippers were hit by globalization and its undulations very early. After the Plaza Accord was signed in 1985 to correct the U.S. dollar's excessive strength, the yen shot up against the greenback.
This had a major impact on shipping companies' cost structures, pushing them to make drastic job cuts. Japanese sailors bore the brunt of those cuts. Since then, the industry has been determined to curb expenses, the result being a reliance on workers from countries where labor costs are lower.
In the case of the Philippines, sailors there are considered highly skilled. They are also proficient in English and generally willing to accept long voyages. NYK Line established a sailor training and management company in the country in 1989. A quarter-century on, Filipinos now account for 75% of NYK Line's roughly 20,000 sailors.
Despite the international makeup of crews, transport companies have been slow to bring non-Japanese into the management fold. But times change.
NYK Line is now not only hiring in the Philippines, it is actively nurturing future captains and engineers.
Seafaring studies
In 2007, NYK Line set up a nautical college near Manila. The four-year boarding school's curriculum is a mix of academic study and shipboard training. There is a strong emphasis on discipline.
The first group of graduates emerged in 2011. The annual number of grads is expected to increase from about 120 now to 180 in 2017.
The LNG business is a pillar of NYK Line's growth strategy. It is expected to generate stable profits over the long term. The company currently has a fleet of 67 LNG carriers and plans to add over 30 more within the next five years.
Filipino employees are sure to play a major role in seeing the company's strategy through.
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