The Korean Shipowners Association (KSA) has complained of chronic shortages of deck and engineering personnel to crew the 20-man ships that put to sea each year.

More than 600 ships were in service from Korea in 2006, up from 566 the previous year. KSA noted that 1,200 new crewmen must be found every year to sustain the growth.

Other factors undermining recruitment are the lower wages paid to skilled crew who would rather seek better paying positions ashore. A seagoing crewman used to get paid as twice as much as a land-based transport worker, but today seagoing wages have fallen.

Also increasing numbers of workers do not wish to spend months at sea, leading them to find shore jobs. To remedy this, the KSA has decided authorise hiring up to 11 foreign sailors per ship, up from the current limit of eight crew members.

However, Korea's big shipping firms, such as Hanjin Shipping, are less affected and dispute KSA claims. "We recruit about 100 to 200 sailors from the nation's leading maritime universities in Busan and Mokpo every year," said a Hanjin spokesman. "I think the KSA's review reflects more on small and medium-sized shipping firms."