Demand For Translation Workers Might Be Increasing
You would have to be blind to not see that many types of jobs have left America. But while this trend has been visible for at least a decade, translation firms are experiencing an increase in demand.. As you might imagine, the types of translators who are in greatest demand come from the industrialized countries of Germany, the United States and Japan and from the developing nations of India, Mexico, Brazil and several others. Yet while Chinese Translation and interpretation workers can rest easily for a moment, the employment status of other skilled service workers is at great risk. In fact, large numbers of jobs requiring people with advanced skills are being relocated to underdeveloped nations. With no let up in this trend expected, a growing number of academia, lawmakers, economists and trade groups are spending more to research the trend.
What Does Offshoring Mean to The Translation Industry?
Offshoring is a type of outsourcing. According to Eiko Ito, a Portuguese Interpretation worker, “Offshoring simply means having the outsourced business functions done in another country.” Frequently, work is offshored in order to reduce labor expenses. But sometimes companies have other reasons that include the need to overcome regulations by entering new markets and even to be closer to a more talented workforce. Even though the reasons may be different for each company, offshoring is becoming more and more mainstream and as this happens, the increase in Russian to English Translation demand has also been consistent. It’s worth mentioning here that offshoring has been going on for years, if not decades and is partially driven by the need for companies to sell their goods in foreign markets. Since the sudden and significant growth in outsourcing began, several important changes in the business environment in the late 1990s facilitated the emergence and rapid growth of services offshoring, including the offshoring of activities with significant engineering and medical content. Some examples include Medical Translation professionals, Electrical Engineers, Aerospace Engineers and more. These changes have been made possible due to advances in information technology, an increase in the demand for certain types of technical skills, and the emergence of appropriately skilled, low-wage workforces in India, China, and elsewhere.
As we move into a new decade, the same debate will be following us as offshoring moves into the fields of engineering and medicine the same way it entered the manufacturing sector of the US economy almost 20-years ago. You can probably still recall the names of some of the first people who stood up against offshoring and predict it results on the U.S. economy. Others counter that offshoring is a benign trend that enables U.S.-based companies and entrepreneurs to develop and market innovations more quickly and cost effectively.
What’s Stopping Language Translation Agencies From Being Offshored?
While it appears that domestically located language translation agencies are profiting at the expense of the American workforce, several language translation trade associations are offering different opinions. It is more than likely that at the current pace of offshoring, more translation companies and translator jobs will be located outside of the United States. In fact, a German Translation organization recently produced a report that argues that long-term U.S. leadership in science and engineering is now at risk. Throughout developed nations, an increasing number of workers involved in the translation and interpretation service industry are increasingly worried about further offshoring moves. If developing nations can offer workers who have strong Language Translation, Science and Engineering backgrounds then ability for the US to maintain its competitiveness will be in danger. Consequently, while the US is losing medical and engineering services, it is also losing translation jobs but at a much slower rate.
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