Despite the good pay, deep-sea fishing has been an occupation long shunned by young people.
The work is tough and dangerous, and crew members must often spend several consecutive months at sea.
With so many crew members now growing old, deep-sea fishery bases across Japan are facing labor shortages–except in Kesennuma.
This fishing city known for tuna and skipjack tuna production has taken a nontraditional approach to attract young people to the business.
As a result, Kesennuma has seen a more than fourfold increase in applications to work on deep-sea fishing vessels from a year earlier.
One day in mid-March, Rui Abe, 20, was learning ropework, an essential skill in maneuvering vessels, from a former chief fisherman in his 70s at a Kesennuma city-run fisheries training center.
Abe, a recent graduate of the specialized course at the Iwate prefectural-run Miyako Fisheries High School, had applied for a job on a deep-sea tuna fishing boat.
He always wanted to become a fisherman, thinking it would be cool to catch huge fish around the world, just like the tuna fishermen he saw on a TV program.
He was also attracted to the high wages.
An older acquaintance from his alma mater, who was already a fisherman, bought an imported luxury car on a loan.
“I also heard it isn’t an easy job,” Abe said. “But it is worth trying if I am paid for how much I can work.”
According to a Kesennuma-based association for shipowners in northern Miyagi Prefecture, deep-sea tuna fishermen typically work for 10 months at sea and take 50 to 60 days off once they return to port.
Depending on the catch, crew members can earn 5 million yen ($37,700) in their first year. And while they’re out at sea, they don’t need to pay rent, food and utility bills.
In the business year that ended in March, there were 18 new hires on near-shore or deep-sea tuna fishing boats or deep-sea skipjack tuna fishing vessels in the city.
Of them, 14 were high school graduates and four were college graduates.
A year earlier, there were only four high school graduates and no college graduates. In earlier years, the annual number of new hires was usually less than 10.
Although many applicants in the latest round were from fisheries and industrial high schools, some had attended an agricultural college in Hokkaido.
Many said they yearned to join the profession after learning about the work from older students at their schools.
The deep-sea fishing industry is aging, with many crew members now in their 70s. The Kesennuma association has been making efforts to recruit young workers.
It started posting video clips featuring anime characters two years ago about the job to cast aside false images associated with fishermen, such as they are forced into the work to pay off debts.
The video series has received more than 240,000 views on a video-sharing website while the association has received an increasing number of inquiries from viewers.
Tazuo Yoshida, 52, a recruiter at the association, interviews applicants online on a daily basis.
He said the number of applicants has sharply risen because the videos and the word-of-mouth reputation are beginning to produce results. He also has high hopes the figure will keep rising.
One key issue for the association is to keep workers in the industry. Some crew members quit after their first ocean outing.
“Shipowners are also making efforts to help them work for the long haul,” Yoshida said. “But there is no high-paying job that is easy. And there are young people who understand that and are still eager to pursue a rewarding career. We want to warmly welcome them.”