IMCA Conducts Offshore Survey

The International Marine contractors Association (IMCA), an international association with over 850 members in 60 countries representing offshore, marine and underwater engineering companies recently published information regarding the number of people working offshore in diving and ROV positions. This is the first time IMCA has published this information. IMCA has four technical divisions, covering marine/specialist vessel operations, offshore diving, hydrographic survey and remote systems and ROVs, plus geographic sections for the Asia-Pacific, South America, Europe & Africa, Middle East & India and Central & North America regions. The goal is to benchmark the total numbers of personnel, roles and locations of work as well as proportions of freelance personnel. The study found that in February of 2010 the personnel total was 618. Of those employees approximately 10 percent were freelance. In August of the same year the total number of personnel rose to 904 with the number of freelance contractors reaching 20 percent. The data represents 28 offshore survey contractor members of IMCA. This is the first time the survey has been circulated, and some of the companies may not have had the data available. IMCA’s Chief executive said, "In early 2011 our Offshore Survey Division Management Committee decided that it would be beneficial to collect information on how many personnel were working offshore in survey-related roles, and how many of them were freelance personnel." "The figures are intended to provide a snapshot of how many people were working in offshore survey-related roles at a given time in the year, and whether or not they were staff or freelance," says Hugh Williams. "Obviously, as the figures represent a snapshot, they do not take into account any major contract that may have been completed shortly before the days of the count, or one which may have started shortly after; neither do they include anyone on leave, sick or not working for any reason on the two given days in February and August."