The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages recently conducted a survey of 1,200 U.S. employers and found language skills are in high demand across industries and functions—and demand is expected to increase, according to forconstructionpros.com.
The council published the survey results in its report, “Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demand Among U.S. Employers.” Employers in construction, manufacturing, hospitality and travel, professional and technical services, health care and social assistance, education services, trade and others were surveyed for the report.
The report revealed the construction industry has the greatest foreign language skills gap among all sectors studied. However, job-site communication was not the only factor affected by the language gap. Employers in construction reported being unable to pursue or losing business during the past three years because of a lack of foreign language skills. In addition to closing the language gap on job sites, construction companies need to consider customers who may speak a foreign language.
The survey shows foreign language skills are becoming a necessity for doing business, and employees who frequently interact with customers reportedly should improve language skills or risk affecting current and future business.
Additional key findings in the report showed:
- Forty-two percent of construction industry employers say they rely “a lot” on employees with foreign language skills.
- The construction sector had a 49% increase in demand for foreign language skills during the past five years.
- Fifty-four percent of the construction industry expects an increase in demand for foreign language skills during the next five years.
According to the report, Spanish is the most in-demand foreign language for all industries, followed by Chinese, French, Japanese and German.
