Not so apparent but no less fundamental is the human labour that keeps this great maritime system at work. Seaborne labour is one of the most crucial yet under-investigated aspects of maritime relations, despite its growing role in the economic balance, sustainability, and the regulation of crises. Seaborne labour as the key to the global economy According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), approximately 80-90 percent of all global trade in tonnes is transported by sea, and it is estimated that the amount of cargo shipped is more than 10.6 billion tonnes annually. The whole mechanism is based on an estimated 1.8-2 million merchant seafarers who work in the world shipping system, including container, bulk, tanker, and specialised ships (UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport). Practically, transporting food and other vital goods occupies over 70 percent of the total volume of food and other important goods in the world, rendering seafarers vital in food supply to all parts of the world as well as daily consumption (International Chamber of Shipping).
However, despite this centrality, the maritime policy debate tends to treat labour as a background variable rather than a pillar of strategy. The implicit assumption on which trade resilience, naval logistics, and port efficiency are constructed is that there is a continuous supply of skilled seafarers, an assumption that is at best seldom questioned until it is disrupted. An at-risk and unstable workforce It has been empirically demonstrated that the seafaring occupation is one of the most hazardous in the world. Another historic occupational health study in Denmark had revealed that occupational accidental mortality among seafarers was over eleven times greater than among working-age men on shore, highlighting the high physical hazards of sea work (International Labour Organization). Military confrontations, working hours and exhaustion, contact with dangerous machinery, and environmental risks are not going to disappear in shipboard life, even under the regulatory system of the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC 2006). These vulnerabilities are even exacerbated in global shipping by cost-minimisation strategies. Recent qualitative studies show the direct impact of precarious work relations on nutrition, food quality, and well-being on board ships, even though seafarers are the ones who keep global supply chains running (Baum-Talmor et al., 2024). These circumstances demonstrate a sharp paradox: the labour that nourishes the world can be at risk of working under conditions that undermine its health and safety.
