Livemocha - Trends in business - What languages are top employers requiring of new hires?

Guest Post: Daniel Owen – Recruitment Consultant for Euro London Appointments, Multilingual Recruitment Specialists. Daniel has written for us twice before (links below) and has a unique perspective to offer our readers in regard to what employers are looking for when it comes to bi- or multilingualism in the workplace and in the job market.

By Daniel Owen

Working at Euro London Appointments, Europe’s largest independent multilingual recruitment consultancy, new jobs come in daily for us to recruit for. These jobs are far ranging across many different sectors and at many levels of the pay scale but the one constant that they do have is that they all require the knowledge of at least one other language, sometimes even three or four. This allows us to see the current market trends for language use in the workplace as well as emerging language needs from expanding markets.

It’s been a tough few years in the job market, the credit crunch of 2008 and the sovereign debt crisis in the Euro Zone at the end of last year had an adverse affect on the job market. What we are starting to see now is a growing world economic recovery as companies and employers start to recruit, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted world economic growth of 3.5% in 2012 as “some optimism has returned” to economies [1]. So where do we see current demands for languages in the market place and where do we see the trends going?

Currently popular languages include German, which is in high demand, as well as French, Dutch and Scandinavian languages such as Swedish. There is also growth in demand for languages of the emerging markets including Mandarin, Portuguese and Korean. Language use also varies over sectors, in the import/export markets there are a multitude of varying languages as people interact with each other around the globalized world, whereas in other sectors market coverage is more specialized and therefor as is the language use.

Companies will also decide what level off fluency they need as well; this can be native level, fluent, business level. We very rarely see jobs for people with basic understanding of languages as most companies will need languages to be up to business capability level at least, to allow for you to conduct business in your second language as well as your first.

Within the global market there has been a growth in the demand for Mandarin and Portuguese speakers as China and Brazil continue to grow. At the end of last year, Brazil’s economy overtook the UK’s to become the worlds 6^th largest economy. BRIC* languages (Portuguese, Russian, Hindi and Chinese) are becoming increasingly popular and we predict that they will continue to become more relevant as these countries continue to grow.

Here at Euro London Appointments we think that languages will always be a plus in you professional life; but they don’t only open up doors for your career, they create a wealth of opportunities in your private life as well.

Daniel has shared his recent report European Hiring Trends for Spring of 2012. Follow the link below to view the PDF for more detailed information. http://www.eurolondon.com/blog/en/european-hiring-trends-spring-2012/