© Angela Treptow/S.C Sea Grant Consortium
The first intake of the new South Carolina Commercial Seafood Apprenticeship Programme recently completed the course, and are now aiming to land jobs in the fisheries and aquaculture sector. The group of six participants met daily in a classroom at a former public school in the fishing village of McClellanville, where they learned about everything from seamanship and business marketing, to shellfish rearing and small-engine maintenance.
The programme, organised and hosted by the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium, aims to match students up with industry jobs when they finish the course. According to programme co-director Jocelyn Juliano, the students were extremely keen to get started in the industry.
"They are so eager to get started – they want to jump right in. Next time, we want to have job descriptions ahead of time from industry members looking to hire so the participants can meet the business owners right away and set up some jobs,” said Juliano, in a press release.
South Carolina’s seafood industry currently faces challenges including an aging workforce, aging dock space and facilities, competition from imported seafood, and development pressures that threaten marine ecosystems. The apprenticeship programme, which is supported by NOAA’s National Sea Grant Office, aims to work towards solving these problems by encouraging young people to join the South Carolina seafood industry.
