December 23, 2022: Since the 1990s, navies worldwide have been facing increasing problems recruiting enough sailors. When these problems become critical, they make the news. For example, New Zealand recently reported that three of its nine warships could not go to sea because of a shortage of qualified crew to operate the ship. Serving on a ship has always been a skilled profession. Another aspect of this is that most sailors work on merchant ships. Currently there are 1.9 million qualified mariners and officers to operate the 75,000 ships of the international merchant fleet. That’s only 25 personnel, most of them men, per ship. The job pays well and even the largest ships rely on automated equipment to keep crew sizes small. This automation and small crew size had been around for decades as the merchant fleet grew larger and ships spent more time at sea. Despite the benefits, there is a growing shortage of qualified crew, especially officers. Typically, officers are 15-20 percent of the crew and skilled specialists another 15-20 percent. Most crew come from less affluent countries in South and East Asia as well as Africa and South America. For those sailors the pay and living conditions are very good but the time spent away from family is a major minus. People who have or can learn the skills needed to operate a ship are increasingly staying ashore because there are enough good jobs.

Navies have to recruit from the population of the country they serve. There are some exceptions, like between the navies of English-speaking countries (United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. All these countries are having problems recruiting sailors but often sailors seeking to move to another English-speaking country are allowed to transfer to the local navy. This was common as all navies downsized after the Cold War ended in 1991. Experienced sailors who had lost their jobs because of this were often able to transfer to another English-speaking country where the have had personnel shortages. The Americans, with the largest number of active-duty sailors has, in a few cases provided other countries with qualified volunteers with needed skills. Despite these exceptions, in most cases if you cannot recruit enough sailors locally, you can’t put all your warships to sea, or at least not for as long as you would want. Increasing the pay and benefits for sailors helps, and this often involves a “sea duty” bonus for each month spent at sea.

Another solution, first adopted in 2009 was to reduce the number of days ships are at sea by a third, in order to reduce the wear and tear on its ships, and to provide cash and port time for needed maintenance. This also improved the morale of the sailors who had more time at home.

The days-at-sea problems began with the end of the Cold War in 1991, as the navy sought to maintain the same high tempo of operations, and even increase it. That meant sending carrier and amphibious task forces out to sea for six- month cruises to distant parts of the planet more frequently than before. After September 11, 2001, the tempo of operations increased even more, to support the war on terror.

To support all this on smaller post-Cold War budgets, the navy downsized. In the 1990s, the US Navy decommissioned over 300 ships. In 1990, the navy was still trying to increase its warship strength to 600. With the end of the Cold War, and the threat of the huge (but now disintegrating) Soviet fleet, there were suddenly more crises and hot spots the navy felt it had to deal with. While only about a quarter of all ships were at sea during the Cold War, in the 1990s about a third were out there. This put more strain on sailors, as marriages fell apart and sailors got tired of the constant stress of sea duty.

In response, the navy focused on building new ships that used 50-80 percent fewer sailors. This is not as extreme as it sounds, for commercial ships have been doing this for several decades. But the smaller crews have not arrived yet, because the new ships have proved too expensive to build. Meanwhile, the navy was putting off doing a lot of ship maintenance, especially items that require replacing lots of parts on engines and other mechanical and electrical systems. The result has been more ships failing inspections and having problems while at sea. The decision to cut days at sea, and catch up on maintenance, made sense.

Another partial solution to the sailor shortages was to recruit qualified women. In the United States women became more of a presence in the armed forces after the military went all-volunteer in the 1970s. That led to more and more combat-support jobs being opened to women. This became popular within the military because the women were often better at these support jobs. This led to women being allowed to serve on American combat ships in 1994. In most NATO countries between 5-10 percent of sailors are women, while in Britain it is 10 percent, in the United States 16 percent and six percent of the Japanese navy is female. Like many other major navies, more women are being recruited in part because there is a shortage of men willing or able to do this work.

In 2014 the U.S. Navy promised its sailors that there will be more predictable long voyages overseas, but that it may take several years to achieve this. In reality, it may take a lot longer because the navy is constantly ordered to send ships to distant hotspots in response to unpredictable crises in other countries. This is a serious problem for the navy, more so than the other services, because warships are often sent to sea for long periods of time in some distant area. These constant and lengthy “deployments” are unpopular with many sailors, particularly the married and especially recently married.

The long periods of sea time have been causing more and more recruiting and retention problems. Attracting and keeping sailors, especially the highly skilled ones essential to the operation and maintenance of new tech is a major problem. These men and women can get better paying jobs, with little or no mandatory “away time” in the commercial area. Another problem more sailors are becoming aware of is that some types of ships spend more time at sea than others. Between 2011 and 2013 American combat ships averaged 33 percent of their time at sea and the small (and less comfortable) destroyers spent 35 percent of their time at sea. There were also great variations among individual ships, with some destroyers and cruisers spending over half their time at sea during this period.

Of course, this data is just about the ships. The navy is more concerned about how much time individual sailors spend time at sea. That is because the ships are in the navy for life while the sailors can decide every few years if they want to stay. The navy calls this retention and the more time sailors are at sea the fewer of them agree to be retained. To improve retention the navy wants to keep ships at sea only 32 percent of the time and spread the sea time around so everyone eligible to be at sea does their fair share. The navy also tried to achieve another goal popular with sailors; some predictability. Sailors with families want to be around to raise their children and be able to spend time with them at holidays and other special occasions. The heavy “duty tempo” since September 11, 2001 has made predictability and family life difficult for a sailor to find. This often leads to divorce or, more frequently, a sailor not staying in the navy, even when offered large cash bonuses to do so.

Earlier in 2014 the navy announced changes in its policy on maximum time at sea per cruise. At that time crews could expect to spend up to 10 months on a deployment cruise. That was gradually changed to eight months, then seven months and so on. Or at least that was the plan. The navy pointed out that this was part of a continuous process of tweaking policies concerning how much time sailors will spend at sea. But when there’s an international crisis involving the military, policy becomes secondary to necessity.

There have been many earlier tweaks. Back in 2008 the navy adopted a policy of adjusting ship schedules so that crews spent at least half their time in port. This is called "dwell time." With some 60 percent of navy personnel married, dwell time is very important. The navy also eliminated its decades old policy of regular (scheduled to happen whether needed or not) six-month deployments at sea. These deployments were far away and kept sailors cut off from home. The new policy was to keep ships closer to their home port, the better to "surge" a larger number of warships in an emergency. In practice that meant that when ships did go out they might not return for 9-10 months. That was too long for both morale and maintenance.

In the past ships returning from a six-month cruise usually required a month or so of maintenance and repairs in port upon returning. During this a lot of the crew took leave (vacation time). Military personnel get 30 days of leave each year. Ships returning from the old six-month cruises were out of action for a month or more. The 2008 policy eliminated most of that and more ships are available all the time. The new 50/50 policy uses a lot of shorter trips to sea. Carriers only go out for a week or two at a time, so their pilots can get some practice. This keeps carriers and their escorts in readiness for long cruises.

This 2008 policy failed when the navy declared that growing tensions with Iran and China required a constant surge situation and as a result has been hustling to find sailors and working ships to maintain a strong presence in the Persian Gulf and Western Pacific. Cuts in the navy budget in the last decade have caused other problems. Ship maintenance was being deferred; spare parts were not as available as they used to be. These parts were needed to keep a lot of weapons and equipment on ships running. Worse, more and more sailors, especially experienced specialists, decided that they have been pushed too far for too long and were getting out. Many navy leaders wanted to cut back on sea time and allocate money saved towards improving maintenance, readiness, and retention (sailors staying in). The navy was ordered to find other ways to deal with retention as that continues to be a problem.