By Ahmad Jawad
Power of Social Media lies in desperate needs of common man for freedom, right to express his opinion, continuous awareness, Self recognition and exploring different flavours of life. A digital generation born on 1990 is now 26 years old & it is bent on changing the world. Royal Navy is becoming another victim of Digital Change. Read enclosed article. Keep watching, it’s just the beginning…..
Royal Navy struggles to recruit for Trident – because youths won’t serve without Facebook
THE ROYAL Navy is struggling to recruit crew for its Trident nuclear submarines – because youngsters can’t bear to be away from Facebook.
The fleet is already having difficulty attracting engineers. Last year, those leaving the Navy were being offered incentives of up to £25,000 to stay.
However, serving submariners say the problem is being made worse by a lack of young recruits from the so-called Facebook generation, who do not want to be cut off from social media for up to 90 days at a time.
Royal Navy top brass set up Project Faraday to persuade serving sailors to retrain as engineers, but it is still struggling to fill the gaps.
At the heart of the problem is the fact that young people do not see a life on submarines as an attractive option. This was highlighted in a survey for the Royal Navy by research firm PA Consulting.
Officially the Navy has 2,900 qualified submariners, but more than 800 of these are officers.
Many more have been “beached” – put on land – due to medical conditions, promotion courses or shore jobs.
The fleet needs more than 2,000 personnel to keep its submarines at sea, but senior sources say the recruitment situation is nearing “critical”, with crew on the Vanguard-class boats often having to sail three times a year.
Last night a senior officer on the Faraday project said: “We have never seen such a situation as we are facing.
“There are recruits who want to serve in submarines, but they are getting harder to find and a massive challenge is keeping them in the Navy – many serve a few years and leave. Being a submariner is a way of life; you are locked away on a very important job but it is true you cannot get on your mobile phone and you cannot Facebook your friends.”
One serving submariner said: “We’re all being asked to do extra tours, and there’s a lot of frustration.
“There are key skill gaps, but the real problem is that the service just isn’t attracting younger sailors. I suppose the Facebook generation just don’t want to be cut off for so long.”
