Young European jobseekers are trapped by a language barrier in their countries. Places like Spain and Italy are in hard economic depressions, and the ideal situation for many people would be to work in another country. However, many young professionals don’t speak German, and most German jobs don’t provide adequate translation services for out-of-country workers.
It’s getting to the point where working out of the country is the only option for young people to make a living or to start the career they studied for in university, but without the proper language skills, they are out of luck.
English Getting in the Way of Job Hunting
Many of the young job hunters studied English in school, because English is considered the Lingua Franca of the European continent. However, since most of the jobs are coming from Germany, the businesses would prefer their employees to speak German. German translation has not been on many young job hunter’s agendas while they studied in college though, but now they need it to go where the work is.
Maria Mendez is a 25-year-old veterinarian from Spain. She can’t find any work in her country, but she has been able to find many different veterinarian jobs in Germany through the internet. All of the job listings however, say that the applicant must have a good grasp of the German language. Mendez knows Spanish and English, but her German isn’t proficient enough to work in Germany.
German Businesses Not Willing to Compromise on Language
Most of the job sectors in Germany that are hiring people are either in IT, medical, or educational fields, and they require specialized vocabulary in many cases. Because such a specific knowledge of German language is needed for these job fields, many of the people who are highly qualified and would love to work in Germany are unable to. German translation and the German language are often difficult for other parts of Europe to grasp.
They often find the language difficult to understand and memorize. This is perhaps because so many other European languages are Latin-based, and Germany is a West Germanic language and not similar to the other Romantic languages spoken across the continent.
There is a new program being implemented for young professionals to learn German and acquire better jobs though. The main goal of the program is to provide young European job seekers with enough business translation skills in German that they can qualify to apply for jobs in the country. The program will offer scholarships for people to take language classes and is designed for people between the ages of 18 to 35.