ELIS 2022 Survey

The annual European Language Industry survey was presented in a Translating Europe Workshop (TEW) late March with all major industry associations present. There was also a special session dedicated to Ukraine and the efforts carried out by local translators and interpreters there.

The survey was carried out in the beginning of 2022 and therefore no concrete upheavals caused by the war in Ukraine were detected and the overall forecast was positive with growth predicted for the whole sector. Also salaries were on the rise first time since the pandemic started.

Among major concerns expressed by the industry were lack of work life balance, aggravated somehow by unpredictable deadlines and working from home, and lack on students in translation programmes. The latter was, at least partly, credited to the hype created by machine translation. Despite the visibility work carried out by the industry and increasing need for linguists, there are growing fears of machine translation taking over translator jobs. As confirmed by the ELIS Survey, this will not be the case, and there is even a growing need for linguists in the sector.

Keeping in mind the upheaval created by the war in Europe, the survey partners agreed on carrying out a mini survey on the markets in April. Based on the results on the follow-up survey, industry partners will get back together virtually in an online event to discuss the most recent development of the industry.

For the first time, the ELIS survey is available online on a dedicated website, where also the recordings of the workshop can be found. The website, https://elis-survey.org/, will also serve as a repository for ELIS reports and recordings since its launch in 2013.