Employment advantages of being bilingual

This morning I received the following newsbrief from the Language Immersion in the Americas listserve through University of Minnesota.

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From our colleagues at Center for Applied Second Language Studies CASLS:

Source:  California Language Teachers Association (CLTA) News Flash*

If you search for jobs at Monster.com at any time, you will find thousands of jobs for speakers of all languages. Here are some average findings (which may vary from day to day).

* At any given time, approximately 1000 employers nationwide are looking for French speakers. 200-400 of those jobs are here in California.
* There are approximately 500 new jobs available for German speakers. Nearly 100 of those are in California.
* If you speak Chinese, there are typically more than 800 job openings in the country, of which more than 300 are in California.
* If you speak Japanese, there are more than 1400 job openings in the country. In California, there are 400 employers looking for Japanese speakers.
* Spanish, of course, tops the list, with more than 8,300 jobs nationwide and almost 3000 jobs in California. With all languages combined, there are typically nearly 4000 jobs for bilingual individuals in California. That’s a lot of organizations, industries and companies that need employees with language skills. Are we preparing our students to meet this need?
* What kinds of jobs are these? Regardless of specific language needed, the jobs I find on monster.com <http://monster.com/> span all fields: medical, legal, computer technology, science and research, engineering, fashion and interior design, graphic design, editorial, administrative assistants, accountants, and many others.

from CLTA Advocacy Chair, Nicole Naditz

Johnson, L. CLTA News Flash, January 2, 2009.