The focus is on expansion in our Southampton and Sheerness operations as a busy 2015 looks set to be maintained in the final months of the year.
Allocations in Southampton are already more than 37 per cent up this year compared to last and we have now appointed Jim Scott as our new agency manager in Sheerness, as we look to increase further our operations centred on the Kent port.
December in Southampton is a traditionally a busy time for roll-on/roll-off ships and to satisfy the demand for car driver s and lashers, plus the on-going demand for cruise ship baggage handlers, our recruitment continues apace.
We have attended job fairs in Southampton, Portsmouth and Oxford in recent weeks. Purple Door, part of Portsmouth University, were particularly grateful for our attendance. It helped to attract around 1,000 students who showed plenty of interest in the part-time opportunities for cruise ship services in Portsmouth International Port (PIP).
We have also promoted our opportunities at a careers fair at the Jury’s Inn in Southampton and another focused on the recruitment of car drivers in Oxford.
In Sheerness, our operations handling general cargo, forest products and ro-ro ships are set to grow further with anticipated rises in the volumes of traffic through the port. For Pathfinder, that means finding more skilled port operatives such as crane and fork lift drivers along with car drivers.
Expansion by our sister companies SCH and Cruise and Passenger Services means that our network of operations throughout the UK is set to continue growing.
SCH is already in the process of boosting its workforce in Southampton and to support that growth we have also added to our team in the port by expanding our allocation team. Although based in Southampton, our bigger team will be supporting locations throughout the country as the Independent Port Handling Group, of which Pathfinder is part, strengthens its position as the UK’s most extensive provider of port operatives.
