A GOLDEN FUTURE FOR LINGUISTS
I am sitting in my favourite mode of transport (the train) heading across the Pennine mountain range to our headquarters in Leeds, having abandoned my least favourite mode (my car) due to the snow blizzards. I am not surprised at the weather as after all it is only a few days to Spring!
I was really thrilled to receive on behalf of thebigword the Leeds Apprenticeship Award for Large Employer of the Year. Since starting our Apprenticeship Scheme in 2011, we have had 64 apprentices through our doors and nearly half of those who completed their apprenticeship have been taken on as permanent employees.
This is great news but there is no escaping the fact that this is a challenging time for our industry. Our customers rightly demand the very highest quality at great speed, supported by the best technology and at the lowest prices ever. Cuts in both public spending and the private sector have been huge. The message is consistent and clear; top quality delivery for prices that are lower than ever. This has led to a number of actions: less revenue for more words and less money to pay for those words. In addition, there are memory tools, machine translation, GMS’s, TMS’s, CMS’s and all the S’s you can think of!
At thebigword, ten per cent of all our staff employed work for our Technology company where we are creating world-class software and systems. It is in part because of this technology that we are winning some amazing contracts but of course the other precious ingredient is our linguists, and we now employ more than 8,000 linguists from 73 countries. Our qualified linguists have been under huge pressure regarding the funds available for their work and they are constantly having to adapt to using a wide range of technologies.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank our linguists for the wonderful support they have given us during these challenging times. I do think the future will certainly get better as more companies realise that whilst it is easy to trade globally with the use of the internet, the final barrier that has to be conquered is that of language, and no amount of technology will deal with this effectively without on-going human input.
The language requirements needed by organisations are growing at an amazing rate and even with the help of technology, the number of trained linguists available is beginning to fall behind what will be needed in the future. Just like gold, the prices paid for interpreting and translation rise and fall, and there is no doubt that prices are currently at their lowest. But around the corner, as I see it, will be a huge shortage of linguists and as the economy recovers, just like gold, their stock will rise.
I was really thrilled to receive on behalf of thebigword the Leeds Apprenticeship Award for Large Employer of the Year. Since starting our Apprenticeship Scheme in 2011, we have had 64 apprentices through our doors and nearly half of those who completed their apprenticeship have been taken on as permanent employees.
This is great news but there is no escaping the fact that this is a challenging time for our industry. Our customers rightly demand the very highest quality at great speed, supported by the best technology and at the lowest prices ever. Cuts in both public spending and the private sector have been huge. The message is consistent and clear; top quality delivery for prices that are lower than ever. This has led to a number of actions: less revenue for more words and less money to pay for those words. In addition, there are memory tools, machine translation, GMS’s, TMS’s, CMS’s and all the S’s you can think of!
At thebigword, ten per cent of all our staff employed work for our Technology company where we are creating world-class software and systems. It is in part because of this technology that we are winning some amazing contracts but of course the other precious ingredient is our linguists, and we now employ more than 8,000 linguists from 73 countries. Our qualified linguists have been under huge pressure regarding the funds available for their work and they are constantly having to adapt to using a wide range of technologies.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank our linguists for the wonderful support they have given us during these challenging times. I do think the future will certainly get better as more companies realise that whilst it is easy to trade globally with the use of the internet, the final barrier that has to be conquered is that of language, and no amount of technology will deal with this effectively without on-going human input.
The language requirements needed by organisations are growing at an amazing rate and even with the help of technology, the number of trained linguists available is beginning to fall behind what will be needed in the future. Just like gold, the prices paid for interpreting and translation rise and fall, and there is no doubt that prices are currently at their lowest. But around the corner, as I see it, will be a huge shortage of linguists and as the economy recovers, just like gold, their stock will rise.
