The US Navy has approved a plan to put a number of Military Sealift Command logistics ships into extended maintenance periods as well as re-assign certain crews to higher priority vessels, the service announced last month (November 2024), Breaking Defense reports.
“Our civil service mariners play invaluable roles providing continuous logistics support to our deployed naval forces, and they are working overtime to sustain that mission globally,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in a written statement. “This initiative will not only address operational logistics challenges we face now, it will ensure that Military Sealift Command has policies, programs and incentives it needs to recruit and retain future generations of civil service mariners.”
Military Sealift Command is responsible for managing civilian crews that operate the various support and auxiliary ships that resupply US Navy warships around the world. It employs roughly 5,500 civil service mariners, 1,500 contracted mariners, and operates 140 logistics supply ships, such as fleet replenishment oilers and dry cargo/ammunition ships.
There is “a critical shortage across the US, across the civilian mariner landscape, which certainly affects our ability to grow our Combat Logistics fleet and the other [government-owned, government-operated] ships, and our ability to fully generate ready forces,” Sobeck said. “This shortage is an industry-wide problem, and we find ourselves direct in direct competition [with commercial industry.]”
“In fact, we’re just not competitive,” he added, citing numerous obstacles MSC’s mariners face, including delayed relief, extended deployment times and pay caps. By reassigning crews to higher priority vessels, the Navy is hoping to provide more predictable schedules for current crews and minimize “overdue reliefs.”
The shortage of qualified merchant mariners has been a long-festering problem. Ann Phillips, head of the Transportation Department’s Maritime Administration, told lawmakers last year that a 2017 study found, “concurrent operations of the commercially operated U.S.-flagged fleet and sustained military sealift operations” would require roughly 13,600 mariners with “unlimited credentials.” At that time, there were roughly 11,760 mariners who were both qualified and actively sailing, a deficit of more than 1,800.
Sobeck declined to provide updated numbers on the mariner shortage writ large across the country, but said within his purview, MSC is currently coping with roughly 800- to 1,000-person shortages daily.
“The goal is to fully execute MSC’s workforce initiative by the end of fiscal year 2026,” he said. “This brings us directly in line with [the chief of naval operations’] Project 33 goal, ready to sustain high-end, joint and combined combat by 2027.”
