Shipyard crisis

As a shipyard crisis one is structural crisis in the field of shipbuilding referred. Such a crisis is usually associated with the loss of jobs and even the closure of entire shipyards .

In the course of history there have repeatedly been severe shipyard crises in Germany and other parts of the world.

Germany

During the First World War (1914-1918) about 2.76 million GRT were lost through acts of war and confiscation. Around 800,000 GRT were stranded in neutral ports; only 2 million GRT were then still available to the German shipowners. From January 1919, all ships over 1,600 GRT were to be made available to the Allies for the duration of the armistice. In addition, the victorious powers confiscated half of all German ships between 1000 and 1600 GRT, a quarter of all fishing vessels and a fifth of all German river vessels. The German merchant fleet had played a major role on many sea routes up until then.

The German shipowners then invested; the shipyards were producing at full speed. Deliveries reached a record in 1922. With the collapse of the currency as a result of hyperinflation , the utilization of the shipyards fell significantly. Overcapacities, competitive pressure, low working capital and high interest rates resulted in a major shipyard crisis. For example, the employment figures at the Howaldswerke in Kiel fell by over 90 percent between 1921 and 1926.

1960s to 1990s

Between 1962 and 1972, sea trade increased by an average of 10 percent a year, and the demand for seagoing vessels rose. However, shipbuilding capacities also increased worldwide, especially in Asia. The Japanese shipyards were able to expand their market share to over 50 percent in 1968, also due to lower prices. The German shipyards were often left behind, but technical developments helped them to get orders. However, this required investments that not every shipyard could raise. In 1962, Hamburg went Schlieker shipyard in bankruptcy . In the 1970s the number of shipbuilding orders fell sharply worldwide, but particularly in the western industrialized nations. The Roland shipyard in Bremen went bankrupt in 1972, the German shipyard in Hamburg was closed in 1973. Another trigger was the first oil crisis in 1973/74. The Kremer shipyard in Elmshorn went bankrupt in 1978. In Asia (Japan, South Korea , ...), where it was possible to produce more cheaply, there was even an expansion of shipyard capacities. The second oil crisis (1979/1980) also hit the shipbuilding industry hard. In 1983 the Bremer Großwerft AG Weser was closed , and in 1986 the Büsum shipyard .

The crisis peaked in the late 1980s and continued into the 1990s. After the fall of the “ Iron Curtain ”, globalization accelerated ; trade flows and the international division of labor changed in quick succession.

Other well-known "victims" of this crisis in Germany were the Bremer Vulkan (bankruptcy 1995), Schichau (bankruptcy 1996), the Elbewerft Boizenburg (bankruptcy 1997), and others. a. Others only narrowly escaped ruin, e.g. B. the Flender works in Lübeck and the Lloyd shipyard in Bremerhaven.

In Germany, the general shipyard crisis was followed by the Mecklenburg shipyard crisis . After reunification (1990), the GDR shipbuilding company ( Volkswerft Stralsund , Neptun-Werft and Warnow-Werft Rostock, MTW in Wismar, ...) brought about considerable cuts from the planned economy to privatization.

It was not until the end of the 1990s that many of the remaining shipyards experienced a significant upturn.

From 2000

After the global economic crisis of 2009/2010, hardly any new orders were initially placed because there was an oversupply of ships. In summer 2009 the shipyard of Schichau Seebeck Shipyard GmbH was closed. In the previous year it still had 320 employees.

Parts of Nordic Yards no longer exist; the number of employees is right at first glance, without having checked it carefully, either. seem since Please year, since when the data are outdated, with "since = year " supplement out of date to be .
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Large existing shipyards in Germany are Meyer Werft in Papenburg (3,100 employees), Blohm + Voss , Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft in Kiel (now ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems GmbH , 3,700 employees), Nordic Yards GmbH (1,200 employees) and Lloyd-Werft in Bremerhaven (350 employees). According to the IG Metall trade union , there were almost 17,900 full-time employees at the German shipyards in 2014.

In the 2010s and 2020s, up to 5000 wind turbines are to be built in offshore wind farms in the German Bight; hundreds more off the British, Danish, Dutch and Belgian coasts. A study by the consulting company KPMG (May 2011) saw this as a huge opportunity for German shipyards: the offshore industry could bring them sales of up to 18 billion euros within eight years and secure up to 6,000 jobs.

In the 2010s, the shipyards on the North Sea and the Baltic Sea experienced the greatest structural change in their history and are urgently looking for new fields of employment after the end of container shipbuilding .

United Kingdom

In March 1966, the Geddes Report described the situation in the British shipbuilding industry.

In 1967, a devaluation of the British pound and an appreciation of the D-Mark meant that international shipowners temporarily filled the order books of British shipping companies.

The British Shipbuilders Corporation existed from 1977 to 1983 . This public corporation comprised almost all British shipbuilding companies as well as the Belfast shipyard Harland & Wolff at that time . The rule of the Conservative Party, with Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister (1979–1990), is characterized by a phase of deregulation with major privatizations that also affected the shipyards.

literature

• Shipbuilding & Repair . 8-page special supplement to the daily port report of March 13, 2015, DVV Media Group, Hamburg 2015, ISSN  2190-8753

Web links

• Shipyard crisis - shipbuilding industry in roaring seas on ndr.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Olaf Mertelsmann: Between war, revolution and inflation: the Blohm & Voss shipyard 1914–1923 . CH Beck, 2003, ISBN 978-3406510601 (series of publications on the journal for corporate history ), p. 173; Look into the book
2. ^ Olaf Mertelsmann: Between war, revolution and inflation: the Blohm & Voss shipyard 1914–1923 . CHBeck, 2003, ISBN 978-3406510601 (series of publications on the journal for corporate history ), p. 12.
3. ↑ Kiel Memorial Day: March 15, 1930. 75 years ago, the new employment office was built on Wilhelmplatz . Website of the City Archives Kiel ( Memento from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ Containerization of world trade and intensification of international competition . In: Schiff & Hafen , special supplement to issue 6/2019, pp. 14-17
5. ↑ The history of the Büsum shipyard (s) on werftarchiv.de
6. ^ IG Metall - Coastal District - University of Bremen: Employment, order situation , perspectives in German shipbuilding, survey results 1998 ( Memento from December 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) on uni-bremen.de
7. ↑ Offshore as a pillar for the future · For the first time, container ships are being built again . In: Daily port report of March 13, 2015, special supplement Shipbuilding & Repair, p. 3.
8. ↑ VDI-Nachrichten May 27, 2011 ( Memento of the original from June 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. presented on May 26th at the Federal Maritime Conference in Wilhelmshaven 
9. ↑ Inflation is faster - hope for the mark appreciation was deceptive . In: Die Zeit , No. 18/1970.