The results of the European Language Industry survey 2019 have been published. This year’s edition of the survey is the most successful one since its start in 2013. It includes responses not only from Europe, but also from North and South America, Asia, Africa and Oceania – in total 1,404 respondents from 55 countries. Northern Europe, including the Baltic States, was distinguished as a separate region.
Lithuania has participated for the first time. Although the Lithuanian participants were not numerous – only 23 (7 translation companies, 14 freelancers, 1 translation department and 1 training institute) – they still outnumbered their peers from Latvia and Estonia.
The survey was fairly broad in scope, but in summary, the translation industry has concerns about the constant pressure on prices, growing competition and the increasing use of machine translation; although the latter is only used regularly by a minority of translation companies and translators. For the first time, the survey assessed the gender breakdown in the sector. Females clearly prevailed in the freelance category (80%) among respondents, with a nearly equal distribution among the representatives of the translation companies.
Lithuania took a slightly different position when assessing the added value of internship to the company. Unlike most, Lithuanians do not believe that interns contribute significantly to creating an added value of translation companies. Still, good news for students – Lithuanian translation companies, including Eurotradus, intend to continue cooperation, i.e. to employ interns.
The full report of the survey is available here.