Is there an instructor crisis?
- Thread starter Eric Sedletzky
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
- Status
That's true. 90% of my business comes to me this way.
- Messages
- 16,430
- Reaction score
- 5,234
- # of dives
- 1000 - 2499
I see what you're saying. I think this thread confuses doing something now and again for a bit of pay, perks and enjoyment vs. someone trying to make a living as an instructor. Two different things. As I've often said on these threads, I'm not a fan of doing this job (or any) simply for the fun of it and because it can be rewarding. But, I must admit, my 4 seasons as a DM assisting OW courses paid me about minimum wage per working hour, so I may be a bit hypocritical myself. Not as much so as those who DM completely for free gas & discounts though, which are the vast majority. If I were 50 years younger starting out I would NEVER consider trying for a career as a dive instructor-- whether it was then in 1973, now, or any time.
When it comes to lawyers, they have to pass the bar. Doctors have medical boards.
You can't use those analogies unless you are advocating a similar certification process that is industry wide.
And they can both lose their licenses for a variety of infractions that dont leave people dead.
drrich2
Contributor
This alludes to an interesting issue...where is the money actually made in recreational scuba diving in the U.S.?
1.) Courses.
2.) Gear sales.
3.) Group dive trips.
I'm probably missing some items, but that's a start.
From what you describe, unless the dive shop and certification agency were raking in big margins and giving you crumbs, is it fair to say the basic OW course was a very low margin offering (if not a loss leader)? To get people 'in the door' and eligible to buy expensive gear setups and pay for dive trips?
If so, then expecting to make a 'living wage' in providing what, in the larger industry, is seen as nearly at cost services intended to get customers ready to be profited from in other ways you're not part of, isn't going to work.
So the question is, what will recreational scuba instructors do with this knowledge? Some quit? Accept more volume than preferred to more money? Work for the break even point to get 'free' (working) dive trips? Or will we see a shift toward instructors who are involved in (and get kick backs from) gear sales and dive trips?
Would the BSAC model popular in the U.K. change anything about all this? The liability and insurance concerns, would they be the same?
Any idea how the insurance coverage difficulties and costs are affecting rec. dive instructors in the Caribbean (other than the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico)? Are instructors in Cozumel, Bonaire, Roatan, Belize and the Caymans in turmoil over insurance costs and liability concerns now?
OP
Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
Wow! Sounds pretty bad.
I’ve read through pretty much all the responses and from what I gather the crisis is somewhat regional, and second the insurance premiums about to go stratospheric will be devastating.
Ok, so let me explain what’s happening in my neck of the woods.
25 years ago when I got certified my local LDS was an active place. Lots of divers came in, bought gear, hung out around the fill station. There were at least three people on the floor at any given time, there was a wall with several paper flyer holders and the flyers were about local dive club dives, upcoming classes, charter boat dives in Monterey, charter boat dives in Southern California, upcoming fun dives, in October the pumpkin carving contest dive, etc. There was a chalk board with local conditions updated every day. They had at least 10 or 12 instructors on their hot sheet in rotation. I’m pretty sure most or all of them were independent that the shop would hire. There were only two instructors that were actually shop employees, but I don’t know how that deal worked, if they worked through the shop for wages or if they did it on their own time as independents?
There was a municipal pool in town that they used, and also one at the sister store in Novato, they had a pool and that’s where I did my pool work and was certified.
My OW instructor made all of his money diving.
He was part time intructor, he also did some light commercial diving, and he was a stunt diver/working diver for the film industry and For TV commercials. He was a former Navy diver.
My AOW instructor was a City of Santa Rosa fireman who liked to teach classes on the side for fun, not for the money.
My rescue instructor was a newly minted kid who worked was an employee at the dive shop.
there been more after that but I'm net getting into it.
So between then and now, each and every one if the instructors either moved away or quit except for one and she’s 65 yo and really wants to retire. There are no prospects on the horizon.
The dive shop went through a severe low point during the great recession plus during Covid.
The recession was worse. That same dive shop also went through three owners during that time period.
All the divers that I knew back then have either moved away, quit diving, are dead, or too old to dive. I see very few people replacing them. I’m still kicking and active but feel pretty alone sometimes.
The flyer holder is no longer on the wall because there’s nothing to put in it. Charter boats in Monterey are a ghost of what there once was.
There no more dive clubs in my area, they're all gone. We used to have several. Abalone diving shut down which killed a huge part of the local diving economy.
Now instead if three people in the floor there might be one, the owner. Reg services went from one full time guy who was slammed trying to get everything done, to one part time person only doing a few a week on average.
There is no more chalk board with conditions because people just look it up on their phones.
There used to be 6 shops in my county plus the next county north. Now there are two.
Kind if depressing really.
What I think is happening is that this area is not a dive destination and never has been. But there has always been a component of hard cores, sportsmen, who were the local divers. Most of them abalone divers. There was a regional culture about it. Since abalone shut down 7 or 8 years ago a whole portion of the industry is gone. A few did scuba dive but as I remember they were all of a certain age group. A subset of the population. There weren’t many before them and not many after them, they were it. And now they’ve seemed to vanish and nobody is there to fill their shoes.
The other component were the vacationers. People would get certified here so they could dive on vacation, and they had no intention of ever diving here again.
The local divers were the ones coming in regularly for a new mask or fins, or fills, or perhaps another reg or do dad. The vacationers would get OW certified, buy a whole set of gear and you never saw them again unless it was for another class like AOW or nitrox, etc.
Now both are almost gone. The local guys have all died out or quit and the vacationers are not there either. I think they go to Hawaii or somewhere to get certified.
I don’t know what the solution is.
Maybe the instructors need to be shop employees and teach classes on the clock just like if they were working the floor or servicing regs. What’s the difference, it all pays the same right? Make the shop pay for all the insurance and overhead. Have the shop send and pay for their employees to go through instructor development school.
If the shops need instructors then step up.
In my area it looks pretty dismal because of the astronomical cost of living combined with a dying culture. It’s vanishing before our very eyes.
Northern California is not a cheap place to live.
I’ve read through pretty much all the responses and from what I gather the crisis is somewhat regional, and second the insurance premiums about to go stratospheric will be devastating.
Ok, so let me explain what’s happening in my neck of the woods.
25 years ago when I got certified my local LDS was an active place. Lots of divers came in, bought gear, hung out around the fill station. There were at least three people on the floor at any given time, there was a wall with several paper flyer holders and the flyers were about local dive club dives, upcoming classes, charter boat dives in Monterey, charter boat dives in Southern California, upcoming fun dives, in October the pumpkin carving contest dive, etc. There was a chalk board with local conditions updated every day. They had at least 10 or 12 instructors on their hot sheet in rotation. I’m pretty sure most or all of them were independent that the shop would hire. There were only two instructors that were actually shop employees, but I don’t know how that deal worked, if they worked through the shop for wages or if they did it on their own time as independents?
There was a municipal pool in town that they used, and also one at the sister store in Novato, they had a pool and that’s where I did my pool work and was certified.
My OW instructor made all of his money diving.
He was part time intructor, he also did some light commercial diving, and he was a stunt diver/working diver for the film industry and For TV commercials. He was a former Navy diver.
My AOW instructor was a City of Santa Rosa fireman who liked to teach classes on the side for fun, not for the money.
My rescue instructor was a newly minted kid who worked was an employee at the dive shop.
there been more after that but I'm net getting into it.
So between then and now, each and every one if the instructors either moved away or quit except for one and she’s 65 yo and really wants to retire. There are no prospects on the horizon.
The dive shop went through a severe low point during the great recession plus during Covid.
The recession was worse. That same dive shop also went through three owners during that time period.
All the divers that I knew back then have either moved away, quit diving, are dead, or too old to dive. I see very few people replacing them. I’m still kicking and active but feel pretty alone sometimes.
The flyer holder is no longer on the wall because there’s nothing to put in it. Charter boats in Monterey are a ghost of what there once was.
There no more dive clubs in my area, they're all gone. We used to have several. Abalone diving shut down which killed a huge part of the local diving economy.
Now instead if three people in the floor there might be one, the owner. Reg services went from one full time guy who was slammed trying to get everything done, to one part time person only doing a few a week on average.
There is no more chalk board with conditions because people just look it up on their phones.
There used to be 6 shops in my county plus the next county north. Now there are two.
Kind if depressing really.
What I think is happening is that this area is not a dive destination and never has been. But there has always been a component of hard cores, sportsmen, who were the local divers. Most of them abalone divers. There was a regional culture about it. Since abalone shut down 7 or 8 years ago a whole portion of the industry is gone. A few did scuba dive but as I remember they were all of a certain age group. A subset of the population. There weren’t many before them and not many after them, they were it. And now they’ve seemed to vanish and nobody is there to fill their shoes.
The other component were the vacationers. People would get certified here so they could dive on vacation, and they had no intention of ever diving here again.
The local divers were the ones coming in regularly for a new mask or fins, or fills, or perhaps another reg or do dad. The vacationers would get OW certified, buy a whole set of gear and you never saw them again unless it was for another class like AOW or nitrox, etc.
Now both are almost gone. The local guys have all died out or quit and the vacationers are not there either. I think they go to Hawaii or somewhere to get certified.
I don’t know what the solution is.
Maybe the instructors need to be shop employees and teach classes on the clock just like if they were working the floor or servicing regs. What’s the difference, it all pays the same right? Make the shop pay for all the insurance and overhead. Have the shop send and pay for their employees to go through instructor development school.
If the shops need instructors then step up.
In my area it looks pretty dismal because of the astronomical cost of living combined with a dying culture. It’s vanishing before our very eyes.
Northern California is not a cheap place to live.
Aura
Contributor
But is the issue a lack of instructors or a lack of active divers? Would having more instructors around somehow generate more students and more overall diving activity?
It definitely sounds like it's particularly bad where you are. I believe the amount of active instructors where I live is about as low as it has always been, because it has never been a place where people would get certified, at least not at the OW level. There are definitely fewer "casual" divers who do 10-30 fun dives per year compared to 20-30 years ago. On the other hand, the amount of divers who do serious, deep technical diving has gone up. The diving community has definitely changed, but I don't know if I would call it an outright decline.
SlugLife
Contributor
Perhaps someone should explain to the shops, that if they paid instructors more, they shop would get more out of the instructors. From there it's up to to the shops to figure out how to sell that to the customer "we offer platinum classes, with bonus hands-on time, extra skills, etc." That leads to students which are better treated, and better reviews, loyal customers, general good will, etc. It's the difference between "squeeze the customer while we have them" versus "treat customers well, perhaps with some short-term losses that result in long-term gains."
The best market for that might not be your casual open-water student who just walked in the door, but rather someone who already has OW, and a few dives under their belt, and ready to take diving more seriously.
I'm not exactly great at marketing, but from an "informed customer" side, I'm usually looking at both sides of the transaction, what I pay and what I get. If all I see is "AOW", the natural assumption is it's probably similar to any other "AOW" course. But if it's "AOW Plus!" I might read more about what the "Plus" is about.
---
The real middle-man, at least for OW and AOW courses appears to be the dive-agencies themselves. Have you looked at the price of those boring materials?
- Status
Similar threads
