The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2017 - 2

FROM THE PRESIDENT
DAVID RUMSEY
president@atanet.org
Twitter handle: @davidcrumsey

Demand for Translation
and Interpreting
Stronger than Ever

O

ne of the great things about serving
as ATA President is the ability to
meet, listen to, and learn from
translators and interpreters from around
the U.S. and abroad. Most recently, I
traveled to Brazil-home to the secondlargest number of ATA members outside
the U.S.-to attend and present at the
Associação Brasileira de Tradutores
conference, where keynote speaker and
Brazilian historian, Leandro Karnal,
commented on the current uncertain
political climate in Brazil and in the world
at large. He said, "Pessimists go nowhere.
Optimists move ahead."
It's easy to be pessimistic as our
industry experiences some uncertainty
in the face of technological changes
and a globalized economy. Especially
for those of us who have worked in
the translation and interpreting (T&I)
industry for several decades, things are
changing fast. Yet, numerous statistics and
forecasts point to a bright future for our
industry, especially in terms of the rising
demand for our services in an increasingly
globalized world.
Data that was released recently from the
U.S. Census indicates that the number of
people employed in the T&I industry nearly
doubled between 2008 and 2015, and the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' employment
projections predict that the number of
translator and interpreter jobs will grow
29% (to 78,500) by 2024.1 Job growth
for translators and interpreters is actually
outpacing that of other occupations.2
The reasons for this are interesting.
Survey after survey has shown that people
prefer products and services in their own
language, and U.S. companies are starting
2

The ATA Chronicle | September/October 2017

to realize that a monolingual approach to
business is a competitive disadvantage.
Fourteen percent of U.S. and Global
Fortune 2000 companies-companies like
Google, Cisco, eBay, Twitter, Microsoft,
and Marriott-report a loss of business
opportunities due to lack of world
language skills.3
What's more, counterintuitively, the
public discussion about free online
translation tools has actually increased
the market for professional translation
and interpreting. Lured by visions of
technology straight out of Star Trek,
users often discover just how important
and challenging translation is-and
realize that they have sophisticated
language needs that only human
professionals can meet.
The global volume of content to be
translated is growing exponentially
each year, and with it comes pressure to
produce results faster, cheaper, and more
efficiently. But this has been the case
for several decades, and translators and
interpreters have been able to rise to these
challenges by tackling technology, building
better business models, and expanding
their expertise. Far from being phased out,
skilled human translators and interpreters
are more in demand now than ever before.
The public is getting the message,
thanks in part to the efforts of ATA's
Public Relations Committee. Through the
committee's business outreach program
and articles published in trade magazines
by the PR Committee's Writers' Group,
U.S. businesses are learning not only
what translation and interpreting are,
but when and how to use these services
effectively. Recently, we were fortunate
to get significant exposure on CNBC4 as
well as PBS5 to highlight the complexity
of our profession and the sustained skills
and adaptive approaches needed by
practitioners of our craft.
Until the elusive "universal translator"
exists, the need for human-to-human
communication across cultures will
continue. That's why translation
and interpreting is one of the oldest
professions in history. As communication
becomes increasingly complex, the need
for sophisticated language consultants will
only grow. Taking a pessimistic approach
to the future only leaves us feeling
overwhelmed by the much larger societal
and economic forces that are at play. But
an optimistic approach of opening and
adapting to these changes provides us
Continued on page 6

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The ATA Chronicle (ISSN 1078-6457) is published
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2017
