Hot Job Skill: Fluency in a Foreign Language

Globalization, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the increasing needs in health care settings, and the diversity of the U.S. population are all good news for jobseekers with one special skill: fluency in a foreign language. CNNMoney recently wrote an article on why bilingual skills are — and by all appearances will continue to be — some of the hottest on the market. Most of the world’s students might be required to learn English and, yes, Google Translate is a thing, but that doesn’t keep the ability to speak Danish, Japanese, and Pashto from being in-demand for the public and private sector alike.

In this post, we will use Analyst, our online labor market tool, to take a look at interpreters (who deal with the written word) and translators (who focus on spoken language). As it turns out, it isn’t simply where the occupation is seeing great growth and concentration that grabs our attention; it’s the large number of interpreters and translators who work outside the translation & interpretation services industry — and those who do such work aside from their primary job.

Industry Growth Since 2001

Taking a look at the translation & interpretation services industry (NAICS 541930) will give some enlightening context before we look at the occupation itself. The industry has grown 176% since 2001 — the year of 9/11, when the critical shortage of interpreters and translators became painfully obvious with an investigation that discovered that millions of hours of al Qaeda conversations had been intercepted but not translated until after the attacks. The industry grew 17% from 2001 to 2005, then really took off, climbing that much again in 2005 alone, 24% in 2006, and 15% in 2007. Since 2010, the industry has grown 20%, but unlike so many industries, it wasn’t climbing out of a recession-blown crater. Indeed, the translation & interpretation industry was stalwartly recession-proof.

There are now a total of 30,828 jobs across the nation, but curiously enough, interpreters & translators (SOC 27-3091) makes up fewer than 4,000 of them, comprising less than 12% of the industry. With nearly 70,000 jobs in the nation, the interpreters & translators occupation is staffed largely outside the translation & interpretation services industry.

So let’s take a look at the occupation itself.

Interpreters & Translators Occupation: Growth & Staffing Patterns

With 14% growth and over 8,000 new jobs since 2010, interpreters & translators currently has nearly 70,000 jobs and is the 23^rd fastest-growing occupation in the U.S. Median hourly wages are $22.39.

Where do we see the greatest job growth? In all the likely places. Of the 14 metro areas that contain 1,000-plus jobs in 2013, Washington, D.C. (811 new jobs, 22%), the New York area (588 new jobs, 14%), and the Chicago area (297 new jobs, 17%) stand out for growth the past three years. Washington, D.C. is also notable for its high concentration: 2.95 LQ. (An occupation’s concentration, measured by location quotient, is its specialization within a particular region. High concentration tells us that an occupation is particularly unique and compelling for the area.)

Who employs the interpreters and translators? As the inverse staffing patterns illustrate below, most of the jobs are in all other professional, scientific, and technical services (28%); elementary & secondary schools (local government) (13%); marketing research & public opinion polling (11%); translation & interpretation services (5%); and general medical & surgical hospitals (4.8%). Jobs are growing the most in the following industries: all other professional, scientific, and technical services (2,657 new jobs, 16%; marketing research & public opinion polling (1,153 new jobs, 18%); and translation & interpretation services (928 new jobs, 35%).

Honing in on Extended Proprietors

So far, we’ve been using three of our four datasets (QCEW Employees + Non-QCEW Employees + Self-Employed). But we’ll switch now to Analyst’s extended proprietors dataset to take a look at the large number of folks who flex their bilingual skills on the side rather than for their primary job. In fact, there are almost three times as many workers who translate and interpret on the side as those who work standard employees or as self-employees: over 205,000 compared to just under 70,000. Extended proprietors have grown by nearly 15,000 jobs (8%) since 2010 and median hourly wages are $19.54 — a little lower than for full-time employees and the self-employed.

The top 20 MSAs (those containing 2,000-plus jobs) feature predictable growth in the New York area (1,105 new jobs, 8%), Los Angeles (769 new jobs, 7%), Washington, D.C. (555 new jobs, 8%), and Miami (546 new jobs, 14%). Concentration, once again, is highest in Washington, D.C. (1.8 LQ), though it is lower for extended proprietors than for employees and self-employed (2.95 LQ, see earlier).

Conclusion

So if you’re into languages, you might be in for a job. Uncle Sam is on a recruiting frenzy to take care of its language deficit, specifically Near East, South Asian, and East Asian languages, which likely means bigger bucks (and lots more adrenaline) since you could find yourself working in a war zone. As for the private sector, the money is in Scandinavian and Asian languages. You thought Spanish? Not so much. It’s the second most common language in United States, and thus the skill offers the lowest return. Which means it might just be time to brush up on your Brazilian Portuguese.

Illustration by Monique Harby. For questions or more information, please feel free to contact us.