Economic importance of the Flemish maritime ports: Report 2002

TABLE 27 SUMMARY OF THE CHANGES IN EMPLOYMENT AT OSTEND FROM 1995 TO 2002(continued)(FTE)Sectors(indirect effects 51 )1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Relativeshare in2002(in p.c.)Changefrom 1995to 2002(in p.c.)Annualaveragechange(in p.c.)Total maritime .............. 3,587 3,857 3,792 3,277 2,563 544 654 539 17.6 - 85.0 - 23.7Total non-maritime ...... 1,678 1,900 1,796 1,985 2,229 2,203 2,389 2,526 82.4 50.5 6.0Indirect effects ............. 5,266 5,756 5,588 5,262 4,792 2,747 3,043 3,065 100.0 - 41.8 - 7.4Total employment ........ 10,451 10,804 10,389 9,729 9,249 6,633 7,186 7,159 - - 31.5 - 5.3Source: NBB.General changesIn contrast to the three other ports, total employment (direct, including allocation, and indirect) at the port ofOstend fell markedly over the period 1995 - 2002, by 31.5 p.c., which corresponds to - 5.3 p.c. per annum onaverage. This change is attributable, above all, to the sharp fall in subcontracting, since indirect employmentcontracted by 41.8 p.c. over this period, or by - 7.4 p.c. per annum on average. The decrease in directemployment is not as sharp but is nevertheless quite pronounced at - 21.0 p.c., which corresponds to - 3.3 p.c.per annum on average. The employment created, especially in the highly productive sector of the chemicals, wasnot sufficient to reverse this trend. 2000 will remain a bad year in terms of employment: 12.8 p.c. of direct jobs,42.7 p.c. of indirect jobs and, as a result, 28.3 p.c. of total employment was lost. This significant fall can beexplained largely by the cessation of trading by RMT and by the restructuring work carried out in other sectorssuch as chemicals. As shown in greater detail below, employment here has fallen constantly, as has investment,which has been virtually zero for Ostend-based shipping companies since 1996. The indirect employment relatedto this sector is very substantial and the collapse that can be seen in table 27 is the result of RMT ceasing trading,among other things. Since most of the other shipping companies are foreign, the loss of this company has causedOstend's share in the allocation of the indirect effects related to this sector to fall very sharply. However, thesector generates a lot of indirect jobs. Although Ostend no longer contributes to this total, the impact on thesupply chain is immediate, assuming that the indirect effects are limited to the national economy (cf. hypothesis 2of annex 1 - point 5.2.3).The slight upturn in 2001 (+ 6.6 p.c. direct jobs, + 10.8 p.c. indirect jobs and + 8.3 p.c. total jobs) was not enoughto offset these losses. In 2002, another fall in direct employment (- 1.2 p.c.), barely offset by the slight rise inindirect employment (+ 0.7 p.c.), was noted. Overall, this represented a total drop of 0.4 p.c. for all of thecompanies associated with the port of Ostend.For subcontracting, the ratio between indirect and direct employment peaked at 117.8 p.c. in 1998. It thendropped somewhat in 1999, before falling below 75 p.c. in 2000. In 2002, this ratio amounted to 74.8 p.c. Therelative fall in indirect employment at the port of Ostend is due principally to the fall in employment at the shippingcompanies and in fishing, sectors that are heavily dependent on external labour.Changes by cluster in direct effectsEven though employment has been declining since 1998, it fell most sharply in 2000 (- 12.8 p.c., see table 27),with the liquidation of RMT and the loss of its 390 jobs. With the disappearance of this company's directemployment, together with the labour related to its operations, the number of jobs in the maritime cluster shrankby 37,3 p.c. The industry segment was also dragged down by this fall, although to a lesser degree (- 4.7 p.c.).After picking up slightly in 2001 (+ 6.6 p.c.), direct employment fell once again the following year, which also sawa considerable decrease in VA at Ostend. In 2002, there was a substantial decline in employment in the maritimecluster (- 16.2 p.c.) and in the wholesale trade (- 8.7 p.c.). On the other hand, the number of people employed inindustry and in logistics services grew by 4.7 p.c. and 10.6 p.c. respectively.51The breakdown of the indirect effects by sector for the period 1995 - 1999 can be found in annex 5 (table 54).NBB WORKING PAPER No. 56 - JUNE 2004 49