Hiring activity in the language industry continued trending upward in August 2021. After a 10-point upsurge the month prior, in July 2021, the Slator Language Industry Job Index (LIJI) increased by another six points in August.
The August 2021 LIJI grew to 150.77 from 144.74 in July 2021. The index now stands at its highest-ever level, surpassing a previous high in July 2021, as well as pre-pandemic peaks in July 2019 and March 2020.
The index has climbed a total of 42 points in 2021, year to date; and more than 50 points since the LIJI launch three years ago in July 2018.
The LIJI was developed to track employment and hiring trends in the global language industry. The July 2018 baseline is the starting point from which expansion or contraction of employment and hiring activity across the industry is measured.
The growth in the August 2021 figure is linked to an increase in job ads across many of the platforms monitored by Slator. Observational data related to activity across the language industry in the month of July 2021 indicate that the translation, localization, and interpreting hiring environment has remained buoyant.
M&A and Funding
Language industry M&A and funding continued strongly in July, with Slator covering a total of seven transactions during the month.
Four of the five Super Agencies completed acquisitions in July, with RWS tucking in Japanese patent translation agency Horn & Uchida Patent Translation, Lionbridge acquiring game localization studio Rocket Sound, Welocalize buying Germany-based life sciences specialist NLG, and TransPerfect buying Semantix in the company’s largest acquisition to date.
Also in July, Big Language Solutions acquired UK-based life sciences specialist Dora Wirth Languages, Argos Multilingual bought linguistic quality assurance (LQA) provider Chillistore, and Rome-based LSP Translated secured USD 25m in growth equity.
Several LSPs released financial results and trading updates in July, with UK-based media localization provider ZOO Digital reporting its best ever quarter, and TransPerfect delivering record revenues for its second quarter of 2021.
Slator 2021 Video Localization Report
Meanwhile, Japan’s Rozetta reported a small decline in revenues for the three months between March and May versus the comparable period the year prior, but said its machine translation (MT) division grew 4.2% to around USD 7m in revenues.
Slator also covered news of senior hires and appointments in the language industry in July, including United Language Group (ULG)’s promotion of Nicolas McMahon to CEO, Andovar’s appointment of a Managing Director for EMEA, Effectiff’s hiring of a Chief Technology Officer, Straker’s hiring of a Business Development Director, and NaTakallam’s appointment of a Head of Translation and Interpretation Services.
Over at LocJobs, there were lots of new job listings in July 2021, and 23 companies are currently hiring language industry professionals. Translators Without Borders is looking for a Terminology Officer, a Plain Language Expert (English), and a Language Services Quality Officer; LawLinguists has open roles for a Lawyer Linguist with German and English, an Innovation Manager, and a German Sales Account Manager; and TextShuttle also has three job vacancies.
The Slator LIJI relies on LinkedIn for part of its underlying data. The social media site has some 500 million users, many of whom share data about their skills, experience, location, company, and job titles on their personal LinkedIn pages. There are over 600,000 profiles under the Translation and Localization category and a search using the keyword Localization also yields more than 600,000 profiles.
In addition to using data from LinkedIn, the Slator LIJI also culls data from a range of sources, including global job aggregation sites and additional direct company data collected from Slator LSPI companies.
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