October 3, 2017 — In the commercial fishing industry, a newly created coalition of employers and fisheries experts has teamed up to train the next generation of workers at a time when licensed commercial fishing vessels are struggling to find new employees.
The Commercial Fisheries Apprenticeship Program won $150,000 to train 15 fishing-industry apprentices, state Department of Labor and Training Director Scott Jensen said Monday. It’s among 10 job-training programs to receive a total of $2.6 million in state and federal grant money to train 715 people in the state’s second round of Real Jobs R.I. training grants.
Although the DLT awarded those grants in August, Jensen and Gov. Gina Raimondo celebrated the awards on Monday to coincide with Raimondo’s celebration of her 1,000 days in office. The two joined commercial fishermen at Handrigan Seafoods in Narragansett to learn more about the industry’s search for younger workers.
Afterward, Jensen said many commercial fishermen are finding that traditional ways of passing the business on to the next generation, often to family members, aren’t working. That can make it difficult for a fisherman to sell the business and retire, Jensen said.