Illustrative stock photo (source: SME)
People using a foreign language on a daily basis in their work earn 31 percent more on average than those who use it rarely or not at all. This stems from the survey carried out by the Platy.sk website in late August 2016 on 8,634 respondents.
The most used language is undoubtedly English. Up to eight out of 10 respondents claimed they speak the language, while one in 10, particularly in higher age groups, said he/she uses German. Only about 1 percent of people said they speak French or Russian at work, the TASR newswire reported.
“It is interesting that the salary level of people who speak German or French in their job is comparable with the salary level of people using English,” said Miroslav Dravecký, product manager at Platy.sk, as quoted by TASR. “We have not noticed significant salary differences between these three languages.”
The number of people using a foreign language every day is probably the same in companies of all sizes. The average salary of people in bigger corporations is higher than that of workers in smaller firms. This may be caused by the fact that in big firms there are more IT jobs and technical positions in which English is necessary, Dravecký explained.
The survey also suggests that up to one half of people working in IT actively use a foreign language on a daily basis. The salaries in this sector are also higher, as reported by TASR.
Another field in which 26 percent of employees need to speak a foreign language is the automotive industry. There is also a high share of people with active foreign languages in transport and logistics, engineering industry, banking and the financial sector.
Speaking a foreign language has also become part of the basic requirements amongst all positions. While about one-third of employees with lower qualifications, such as qualified manual workers and employees in services, need to actively speak a foreign language, in the case of administrative workers and qualified employees in non-technical fields it is 58 percent, in the case of lower and middle management and qualified technical workers it is 71 percent, and in the case of top managers it is 78 percent, TASR wrote.
Only about 40 percent of respondents said they do not use the foreign language at work. When it comes to sectors, foreign languages are used the least in health and social care, production construction, the state administration and security services.
