Dive Brief:

• The South Korean government will spend $9.6 billion on ships built in local yards to prevent the failure of its shipbuilding industry, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
• As part of the industry-wide restructuring plan, the government will order more than 250 vessels, Hyundai Heavy Industries will spin off its non-shipbuilding business, and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering will cut 5,500 jobs by 2018, Bloomberg reported.
• The government justified its investments by noting shipbuilding's accounted for 7.1% of the country's total manufacturing jobs in 2015.

Dive Insight:

Bailouts and consolidations may seem far from the U.S. market, but the health of the shipbuilding industry acts as a strong indicator for the respective well-being of the shipping industry. 

In fact, many of the market trends — economic slowdown, industry consolidation and bankruptcies — are shared between the two sectors, albeit with one key difference: shipyards are treated as a national industry given their heavy job and finished good production. Shipping lines, meanwhile, employ less people and are considered a service.

Regardless, both sectors continue to point to 2020 as the target date for financial health, although they recognize the industry will face rough waters in the meantime.