Press Release

ARE DIVERS GETTING OLDER?

Much is written and spoken about the oil industry's aging workforce profile and over the years, a number of studies have attempted to look at divers' work habits and ages. Until recently, these have tended to be based on relatively small groups of divers and no large scale overall study had been carried out. IMCA - The International Marine Contractors Association - has now carried out a large-scale survey of divers and diving supervisors, looking at their ages and work patterns for the previous year. This study will be updated every five years.

'Experience & Employment Profile of Diving Personnel' (IMCA D 029) was published recently by IMCA and copies are available at £15 to members, £30 to non-members from IMCA.

The study threw up a wide range of interesting observations:

World-Wide

• India appears to have a much narrower age range among divers than elsewhere
• The average age of divers is remarkably similar world-wide, particularly for saturation divers
• Divers aged over 50 are uncommon all over the world
• Saturation diving is a much more commonly used technique in the North Sea than in other parts of the world
• Surface supplied divers are on average younger than saturation divers
• Surface supplied diving is a much more common technique in the Middle East than it is in other parts of the world
• A significant number of divers appear not to achieve sufficient days offshore for diving to be their main source of income
• The average age of supervisors is very similar world-wide

North Sea

• Divers working offshore under the age of 25 are rare
• The average age of divers is below 40. This has been a feature of most of the previous smaller scale studies and suggests that the average age of divers has not risen over recent years
• Divers working offshore over the age of 50 are uncommon, particularly in saturation
• The average number of days worked offshore by surface supplied divers is much less than by saturation divers
• Diving supervisors younger than their late 30s are uncommon
• Diving supervisors do not work beyond their late 50s

The statistics appear to lay to rest such theories and opinions as "the average age of divers is rising by one year as each year passes", "there is going to be a major problem soon as everyone is going to retire at once" or "there are no young divers entering the industry".

"We are confident that thanks to the limited number of employers, a degree of stability among the workforce and record keeping of an extremely high standard, there is a very high percentage of data capture and so a high degree of accuracy as far as the North Sea statistics are concerned," explains Jane Bugler, IMCA's Technical Director. "In other parts of the world where we opted for a more general survey and conducted it solely through employers who are members of IMCA accuracy is somewhat lower."

The statistics in the 53-page study relate to the year 2000. Since much of the data provided was commercially sensitive, IMCA agreed to destroy all the input once the statistics had been extracted. The next survey will be undertaken in 2006, looking back to 2005.